Prof Saffron O’Neill from the University of Exeter discusses her fascinating new book The Visual Live of Climate Change(Bristol University Press 2025) with Prof Matt McDonald (UQ).

The Visual Life of Climate Change is an open access book that explores how one of the most pressing political issues of our day is inherently difficult to visualise while, at the same time, deeply intertwined with how prevailing visuals represent the increasingly far-reaching impact of climate change on our lives and our planet.

Saffron O’Neill is Professor in Geography at the University of Exeter. She is a leading expert on the visual communication of climate change and its political and ethical implications.  Her research has been funded by a wide range of institution, including a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and has appeared in leading outlets, from Science, Science Communication and Nature Climate Change to Geoforum, Environment and Planning A and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The interview was conducted by Roland Bleiker and Matt McDonald, who is Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland.  He too is a leading scholar working on climate change.  His most recent book on the topic is Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

The interview took place as part of a seminar held on 1 April 2026 in the context of a series of events organised by the Visual Politics Program at the University of Queensland.