The Climate Change Documentary ‘2040’ Offers An Optimistic Vision Of The Future We All Need Right Now

Releasing a documentary about the near-future of our planet in the midst of a global pandemic? Unless you’re one of those gluttons for punishment that has recently pushed frightfests like Contagion and Outbreak towards the top of the Netflix Top 10, 2040 initially sounds even less appealing than having a cotton swab shoved up your nose. 

But whereas many environmentally-friendly affairs revel in doom and gloom – who didn’t have nightmares for weeks on end after watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth? – Damon Gameau’s labor of love opts for a refreshing glass half-full approach. 

Indeed, scare tactics aren’t really an option when framing your entire movie as a letter to your four-year-old daughter. Instead, the affable actor-turned-documentarian attempts to engage his audience with optimism, envisioning the kind of semi-utopia his first-born could be celebrating her 25th birthday in should the political elite ever treat climate change with the urgency it needs. 

2040 is Gameau’s second directorial effort, having previously tackled the hidden dangers of a super-sweet diet in That Sugar Film. And it adopts many of the quirks which turned that Super Size Me-esque experiment into the highest-grossing doc in Aussie box office history.

Experts are given the Honey I Shrunk The Kids treatment, offering their words of wisdom while sat on an apple tree branch or riding around a Monopoly board. There are charming diorama sequences which help make complex theories, including one dubbed the donut hole, far more digestible. And Gameau ages himself by 21 years for a handful of yoga-obsessed embarrassing dad vignettes. This is pop science at its most populist. 

And yet 2040 is arguably more captivating when it drops the gimmickry and tells it straight. An interview with a young Bangladeshi graduate, who’s returned to his poverty-stricken hometown to spearhead a revolutionary shared solar power network, shows there’s real substance to Gameau’s “fact-based dreaming.” 

Indeed, although there are visual gags about rocket-fueled boots and drone phones that eradicate the need for pesky selfie sticks, the film is only truly interested in technology and practices that are already available today. 

So we see how the cultivation of seaweed has become a vital tool in the challenge of storing carbon, how the advent of on-demand driverless cars will significantly reduce air pollution and how regenerative farming can help prevent the serious agricultural threat of soil degradation. Gameau’s hopes for the future may be considered idealistic and naïve by more sceptical viewers but they’re never pie in the sky. 

They are, however, only surface level. With only 90 minutes to spare, Gameau doesn’t have the time to explore such proposals beyond more than a few soundbites. And his determination to keep the mood buoyant means he barely addresses the giant obstacles that would stand in the way of such seismic shifts – a short segment about the sneaky online tactics deployed by oil giants is as cutting as it gets. 

Given That Sugar Film‘s remarkable success, you can understand why 2040 was given a cinematic release Down Under (it’s being distributed as a video-on-demand title here in the United States). But perhaps it would have been more effectual as a TV series – Gameau himself has admitted to being open about the idea of a small screen spin-off.  

The film undoubtedly loses its focus towards the final third, too. A trip to the Ohio city of Oberlin that’s implemented a well-meaning but abstract environmental dashboard system seems like a waste of carbon emissions. And while 65 million girls across the world having no access to a basic education is a startling statistic, it’s an issue which seems to belong to a different movie altogether.

Of course, as a crash course in global warming, 2040 may well become a classroom staple itself. It’s certainly more likely to hold attention than the bone-dry, made-for-schools docs that would normally get wheeled out, although the cutesy vox pops interspersed throughout suggests that today’s youngsters are already far more concerned with the state of the environment than many world leaders. We’re fully on board with the ideas of teleporting aeroplanes and a National Hot Dog Day every single day, by the way. 

And while Gameau’s narration may be a little too perky for some, his genuine enthusiasm and devotion to the cause is generally infectious. In fact, by the time that the uplifting, cinematic sounds of M83 blare over the closing fantasy sequence – the most eco-friendly 25th birthday party ever staged – you might start believing that yes, even if only for a brief, futile moment, perhaps the world might not be as doomed as we all thought. 

“I think there’s room for a different story,” Gameau states at the beginning of his planet-saving journey. And although it may be a rose-colored one, it’s the kind we all currently need. 

Jon O’Brien (@jonobrien81) is a freelance entertainment and sports writer from the North West of England. His work has appeared in the likes of Esquire, Billboard, Paste, i-D, The Guardian, Vinyl Me Please and Allmusic. 

Where to stream 2040