Totally Cooked: Episode 30 – Europe’s fires, battling Putin & climate optimism, with Peter Stott

Professor Peter Stott has spent decades proving that human activity is rapidly warming our climate, and confronting those determined to deny it.

In this episode of Totally Cooked, Peter joins hosts Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Iain Strachan to recount some extraordinary moments in the fight for climate science. He takes us inside a meeting in Moscow that was hijacked by advisers to Vladimir Putin and turned into a show trial, explains how An Inconvenient Truth landed him in the UK High Court, and reflects on the hacking scandal that became known as Climategate.

The conversation also explores Peter’s pioneering role in the development of extreme weather attribution. Beginning with the devastating 2003 European heatwave, scientists have learned to determine how human-caused climate change increases the likelihood and intensity of individual extreme events. Peter explains how the field developed, why accurate reporting of heatwaves matters, and where attribution science goes next.

Finally, Peter discusses his book, Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial, and what working with artists and musicians has taught him about communicating climate science through stories.

Iain records Totally Cooked on the lands of the Bunurong People of the Kulin Nation. Sarah records Totally Cooked on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging and recognise their unique and continuing connection to the land, skies, waters, plants and animals.

Show Notes

In this episode, we look at:

• Guest: Prof Peter Stott — Science Fellow in Climate Attribution at the Met Office Hadley Centre, Professor of Detection and Attribution at the University of Exeter, and author of Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial (Atlantic Books, 2021).
• The 2004 Moscow “show trial”: a British science delegation flew in to meet Russian scientists over Kyoto Protocol ratification, only to be ambushed by imported climate deniers under Putin adviser Andrei Illarionov.
• Surveillance, honeytraps and being followed through Moscow — and meeting the sidelined Russian scientists afterwards, who accepted the science.
• How extreme-weather attribution began: a 2003 Tuscany holiday, a heatwave, and Peter connecting Myles Allen’s probabilistic idea to his own work on detectable climate signals.
• The landmark result — Stott, Stone & Allen (2004), the first study to link a specific extreme weather event to human-caused climate change (Nature 432, 610–614).
• Attribution as risk and blame: shifting the science from “it’s just weather” to quantifying how much human emissions loaded the dice, and Allen’s 2003 “Liability for Climate Change.”
• The 2003 heatwave killed an estimated ~70,000 people across Europe; later heatwaves have often been hotter but less deadly thanks to warnings and forecasting.
• Stott’s open letter to UK broadcasters urging six extra words — “due to burning fossil fuels” — plus the problem of illustrating deadly heat with beach and bikini imagery.
• Net zero politics compared, UK vs Australia: housing, white-roof legislation, and the personal economics of solar and EVs.
• An Inconvenient Truth in the UK High Court (2007): the judicial-review case, the “nine errors” ruling, and the drowning-polar-bears argument, with Peter as the government’s chief witness.
• Climategate (2009): the University of East Anglia email hack, the attacks on Phil Jones, and a plain-English explanation of “hide the decline” and “the nature trick.”
• Storytelling in science: the “And, But, Therefore” structure, harassment of climate scientists, and Peter’s Climate Stories work bridging science and the arts.

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This episode will be released and available to stream and download on Friday 11th September, 2026.

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Why listen to Totally Cooked?

Because it’s time to feel empowered, not overwhelmed. Totally Cooked is a science-backed, straight-talking podcast about weather, climate change, and what it all means for life on Earth – especially here in Australia.

Hosted by climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and science communicator Iain Strachan, Totally Cooked breaks down how human activity is changing the Earth’s systems—from our skies to our seas—and what we can do about it.

From greenhouse gases to fire weather, supercomputers to Antarctic ice cores, this is climate science without the jargon, and where no subject is too complex or controversial.

Totally Cooked is for anyone who wants to understand the science of climate change—without needing a PhD. Whether you’re a high school student, policy maker, journalist, teacher, concerned citizen or just a little climate-curious, this podcast will give you the tools to think clearly and act confidently.

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