Burned: The Price of Oil

In the debut episode of Burned: The Price of Oil, host Shady Khalil speaks with Tasneem Essop, Executive Director of the Climate Action Network, to explore what it  means to fight for justice in the era of climate crisis. From her roots as an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa to leading one of the world’s largest climate coalitions, Tasneem shares how decades of organizing, persistence, and people power reshape the global conversation on fossil fuels and justice.

As the world faces a widening gap between climate commitments and Global North countries driving oil and gas expansion, Tasneem and Shady unpack how the Global South can chart a path beyond fossil fuels. Together, they discuss the meaning of a truly just transition, lessons from the UN climate talk’s breakthrough on fossil fuels, and how people power is building a just transition.

In the second episode of Burned: The Price of Oil, host Shady Khalil speaks with Shereen Talaat, Founder and Director of MENA Fem Movement. They explore the global financial system’s deep colonial roots – and how private-finance-first approaches to the energy transition trap Global South countries in more debt and fossil fuel dependence. 

Shereen shares how private finance seeks profit, not justice, and that only public finance, reparations, and debt cancellation can deliver a truly just transition. Speaking from the perspective of the global majority, communities across the Global South who did the least to cause the climate crisis – not the billionaire 1% minority – she calls for climate and colonial reparations to repair centuries of extractivism and exploitation.

Together, Shereen and Shady unpack how the structures of debt and global financial architecture are the new face of colonialism, and how the rich countries are withholding the trillions in public finance they can actually mobilise to pay for a fair and funded fossil fuel phaseout. But this isn’t the end of the story. Across the Global South and beyond, communities are organizing and resisting and won’t let the polluters or profiteers get away with it.

In this episode of Burned: The Price of Oil, host Shady Khalil speaks with Dr. Amiera Sawas, Head of Research and Policy at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Amiera draws on her decades of experience working at the intersection of climate change, gender justice, and decolonial movements to expose the structural injustices fueling the climate crisis, and the feminist, global majority-led solutions forging the path ahead.

From her personal journey navigating racism, class, and colonial legacy in the UK to helping reshape global climate diplomacy, Amiera breaks down how fossil fuels are bound to systems of patriarchy, extractivism, and global debt. She discusses why just transition efforts must go beyond technical solutions to confront the root causes of climate and economic injustice and how feminist leadership, indigenous knowledge, and global cooperation are essential to building a just future.

Together, Shady and Amiera explore the potential of the Fossil Fuel Treaty, the links between petromasculinity and authoritarianism, and how upcoming global moments, like Colombia’s 2026 diplomatic conference, could change the landscape of climate justice.

In this episode of Burned: The Price of Oil, host Shady Khalil speaks with Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice organizer with Justiça Ambiental (Friends of the Earth Mozambique) and Executive Committee member of Friends of the Earth International. Dipti shares her 25-year journey organizing across India, the U.S., and Mozambique, connecting struggles from anti-dam movements to anti-colonial resistance, rooted in a vision of collective care, dignity, and justice.

Together, they expose the reality of the TotalEnergies LNG megaproject in northern Mozambique, a carbon bomb linked to militarization and human rights abuses. Dipti outlines how fossil fuel corporations use debt traps, legal threats, and state violence to entrench their power in Global South countries, all while claiming to “develop” them.

This episode goes beyond the fossil fuel industry, into empire, patriarchy, global governance, and the colonial legacy of the so-called “green transition.” From Cabo Delgado to the UN climate talks, Dipti and Shady break down why fossil fuel companies can’t be trusted with the future, and how women, youth, and communities continue to organize for the world we deserve.