Christiana Figueres was named head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the body tasked with running COP meetings, six months after a disastrous one. Hosted by Copenhagen in 2009, the summit finished without any meaningful agreements and soon earned the nickname “Brokenhagen.”

“The global mood on climate was so despondent and everyone was so angry with each other,” Figueres recalls on this week’s episode of the Zero podcast. “No one even wanted to talk to each other anymore, let alone trust in the system and in the process.”