What happened at COP30? The key points on cutting emissions, adapting to a warming world, and raising the finance to pay for it

What I'm about to say is we're at a very high level, but followers of the climate process will understand it. At least there wasn't a successful attempt to add some sort of acknowledging the role of false appeals into the future. Things could have been worse, I guess is what I'm saying. And the fact that it wasn't included, I think, as a success. A lot of the countries saying, guys, we really need to get with the program. This is a way of track and, hello, you know, false appeals are, like, by far the biggest talks of emissions. So we really ought to talk about it again. We're still kind of in a situation where the amount of money that we need, or it's never going to be met in the short term, like if there are technologies that can be transformative in the way that technology holds promise, we need to look at everything because we are running out of time. 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From designer financing to operations and maintenance, Hytheum manages the entire life cycle, delivering sustainable profit, stronger resilience and lower emissions. Built to last, built for progress. Discover more at www.hytheum.com and let's empower the green future together. Hello and welcome to The Energy Gang. A discussion show from Wood McKenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Idkrux, and the COP30 climate talks in Belem, Brazil are finally over. They concluded at about 135 pm on Saturday afternoon, pretty standard for cops. They're about a day later than scheduled. There's been quite a wide range of reactions to the outcomes. Simon Steele, who's the executive secretary of the UNF Triple C, sounded reasonably upbeat, he's got the quote here. COP30 showed the climate cooperation is alive and kicking, keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet with a firm resolve to keep 1.5 within reach. I'm not saying we're winning the climate fight, but we're undeniably still in it, and we are fighting back. So that's him on one side, but I've also seen plenty of people describing COP30 as a failure, and someone said a form of climate denial in the final statement that came out of the COP. So to discuss which of those views is closer to the truth, I'm drawn by three of our regular climate experts on the energy gang. Amy Harder is the National Energy Correspondent for the New Service Axios. Hi, Amy. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me on again. Yeah, great to have you back. It's also good to welcome back, Lisa Jacobson, who's the president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy in the US. Hello, Lisa. Hello, and it's great to be back with you too. Great talking to you. Now, you were actually in Berlin, weren't you? You've just got back, I think that's right. Yes, that is true. Fantastic. Yeah, we're looking forward to hearing all about your experiences there. And it's also a great pleasure to welcome back Simon Evans, who is the deputy editor of the Climate Science Publication Carbon Brief. Hi, Simon. How are you? Yeah, recovering. Thank you. Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here. Yes, no, great to have a chance to talk to you. So look, as I say, I'm interested in kind of digging into exactly what happened at COP 30 and how you view the outcome. Perhaps should we start just on those broad headlines of success or failure? How do you view the talks overall? Maybe Amy, start with you. What's your reaction being? Well, you know, I often think in terms of metaphors and I like to run. So building off what you quoted just a moment ago from Simon Steele, it's sometimes it's just enough to stay in the race and not fall down and completely fail. And that's what we saw out of BELAM. And I think given the backdrop of everything going on geopolitically and the Trump administration and all the Whipple effects from America backing out, I think it is, you know, the best climate leaders could hope for at this point. Simon, what do you think? Yeah, and I really like that metaphor, Amy. I mean, honestly, I mean, I guess I find it slightly frustrating that every year we have this sort of same conversation because the outcome of the COP is always a disappointment. But you know, there's always something in there, right? And sure, it wasn't as, you know, it wasn't nearly as ambitious. You know, the COP president said in the Closing Plenary, he knew that lots of countries had wanted a more ambitious outcome, particularly in relation to fossil fuels, which I'm sure will come onto. But, you know, they kept the show on the road. The Brazilians had hoped to wrap things up really early. They wanted to make a really strong punchy statement about how alive and kicking multilateralism was, you know, despite everything that Amy mentioned going on in the world. They didn't manage to do that. They just had a very standard. We were about a day late, but they wrapped it up. They got a deal, you know, lots of people were unhappy. But, you know, they kept the show on the road. And so Lisa, what do you think then you were there? What did it feel like actually in Berlin? Well, just to say, I'll take these two comments on the race analogy. And so it's a marathon. This is not a short term endeavor. And it's not going to be linear. It's not every year is not going to be breakthrough year. We had several breakthrough years already since Paris. And one of them was in Dubai, where we, you know, completed the global stock take, you know, acknowledged some really stark scientific findings. And the process had to move into another phase. And we'll be in this phase probably for the next decade. So I wouldn't take any one year as a measure of success. There's a lot going on in the atmosphere of the cop that kind of mirrors what you heard from Amy at the start. I mean, there's a lot of churning. There's a lot of anxiety about how the climate is impacting people. And how do we recognize that and how can multilateral systems in the modern digital age really function well to serve those needs? I think I left actually continuing to feel like this is a very unique and important forum. But I don't look to it every year to have a breakthrough on negotiations. You know, we had the Paris Agreement. And that is the North Star. We are in an implementation and action phase. And that's what we found, you know, the business council for sustainable energies. Business members found the most practical rewarding and moving the ball forward. But I mean, being there the second week in particular with all the ups and downs with the negotiation and the continued atmosphere being in the Amazon, which, you know, intentionally was a very smart move. I mean, it raised attention to forests. It raised attention to carbon sinks and nature-based solutions in ways. I think all delegates unless they'd spent time in the Amazon were not aware of. And also, it was hot. It was just hot everywhere. And, you know, what, our planet is hot. And many people lived that way without air conditioning. And so there were maybe some logistical elements that weren't intended. But I don't think they were negative after all. Because ultimately, that's what we are facing. And that's what billions of people live with every day. So, you know, being a little uncomfortable is okay. You know, on the other hand, last thought on this is have technology so people don't have to be uncomfortable. We just need to get it in their hands. And we have to make it more affordable. And we need to just protect people from, you know, these disasters we're facing and the heat that billions of people continue to encounter. So it's mixed. But definitely mixed and left me thinking a lot of different things. And I'll be continuing to reflect on it for the weeks ahead, for sure. Yeah. And certainly to your point about we have technologies to make people more comfortable. And we have technologies to make people more resilient and to protect them against the impacts of climate change. That did seem to be one of the bigger themes coming through was a lot more talk about adaptation. How do we adapt to warming? Well, however successful efforts may be to curb emissions, mitigate global warming, it's still the case that the planet is going to continue to get hotter. And we do need to think much more about how we tackle that. And it felt like that was much more on the agenda this time around a COP 30 than it ever has been before. Do you think that's right? I do. I think it's a natural progression of where we've been over the last few years, as well as the Brazilian's prioritization of adaptation. But there's still a lot of struggles there. I mean, most of the conversation was about funding. And we all know how challenging that is right now, but also essential. So I think they also took great strides under the Brazilian leadership to recognize the private sector. And that's the key to unlocking making these technologies available is finding ways to drive private capital in this direction. And then working with governments and multilateral development banks and others to close the gaps to make financing more economic for industry or have the right investment environment in certain jurisdictions. But that gave me hope too. One observation I've had about the rise of adaptation in general, but certainly at these annual UN meetings is, yes, of course. It's rising on the agenda because it's happening. We are living in a warming world and we have to address the impacts. I also am noticing sort of a parallel structure forming where we have the discussion of mitigation of how do we do submissions. The discussion of adapting to a warming world is really other than the political leaders, it's a totally different set of people who are responsible for it. You're not looking at new types of startup funded technologies to solve the adaptation problem. At least not historically, maybe a startup will come around that can solve wildfires in a way that they can scale clean energy. But it'll be interesting to see how these UN meetings unfold in the years and decades to come because it's really two parallel problems that we have to deal with. And I just think that creates a unique challenge because this is such a big issue. Right. And so that's really then the heart, I think, of one of the key issues at COP30, which was this question of climate finance, which is meant to be both finance for mitigation, cutting emissions, and also for adaptation. And as you say, Amy, in large part, as far as we know at the moment, adaptation is not one of those things that can be fixed by the clever application of technology. Maybe sometimes it can. Things like new air conditioning technologies, some of the things that are possible with AI in terms of weather forecasting and analyzing risk and that kind of thing can make contributions. But a lot of the time, it's just fire prevention clearing away vegetation. It's building flood defenses. It's a lot of kind of large-scale civil engineering projects. And it is things that often don't have an immediate commercial return. So they're hard to finance. And so governments have to get involved. And the thing that we've been hearing from low-income countries is that they badly need significantly larger flows of capital from higher-income countries in order to be able to finance both adaptation and mitigation. And that was a big issue on the agenda at COP29 in Baku. A year ago, there was this call for a trillion dollars a year or more of climate finance to flow. In the end, the commitment was for just $300 billion a year. And that was only going to be achieved by 2035. There was a lot of pressure then to get that on the agenda again here at COP30 and to make some real progress on that. What happened in the end? I mean, Simon, you've been following this, I think. In terms of what was actually agreed, has there been any shift in climate finance? Yeah, so I mean, a couple of reflections before I go on to what they talked about in Berlin. One of the things that strikes me is, I mean, you talked about what it actually takes to start adapting to climate change. In a way, it's not totally dissimilar with mitigation. Rolling up your sleeves, getting a hands dirty, financing project, getting stuff built. You can't do that. You can't sort of sort those things out in a negotiating hall with 200 countries. So in this phase that we're in with the past agreement, it's been around for 10 years, and it's supposed to be, you know, one of the big things that the Brazilians wanted to emphasise was this idea that we're now moving into an implementation phase. And so the expectation put on the COP to be this big bang moment where you somehow solve everything like that just doesn't, that just doesn't track when you're talking about individual projects, individual fund defences, or early warning systems for extreme weather events, whatever it might be, all of those things are much more granular, much more kind of country-led. That sort of strikes me as quite interesting. The other thing is just that in terms of people wanted absolutely to talk about finance, particularly finance for adaptation. But as you said, we had this big new collective goal for climate finance agreed in Baku last year, and so like in a sense, we had the finance COP last year, and so this year was meant to be like the adaptation COP, and there were meant to be agreeing these indicators for how do you measure progress towards being adapted around the world. Then that kind of agenda got slightly hijacked from two different directions. So you had one lot of people saying, "Hey, come on guys, if you want us to talk about measuring progress on adaptation, how are we going to make progress if we don't have any money for this?" So that was that from one side, from developing countries, saying, "Well, if we're going to talk about starting to have indicators of progress on adaptation, then guys got a pony up and actually help us with the money to do it." And then on the other side, you had a lot of developed and vulnerable countries, small island states, saying, "Actually, do you know what guys adaptation? That's great. We can talk about that, but we still really need to talk about mitigation. We still need to talk about cutting emissions. We've just had this big round of new climate pledges, and we're still way off track." And so, and then you can see how these different groups start to feel put out, because they're like, guys, we were meant to be talking about adaptation, and they're like, "Sure, but we've just had this instance, this report from the UN, and it says we're way off track. We really should talk about that too." So you've got all this, you know, that's how you end up with a little mess. So coming back to your question, specifically, what they agreed was the decision text that came out of the COP was a call to triple adaptation finance by 2035. Now, when you're looking at legal text from the UN, you have to read it really carefully. They helpfully put all of the verbs in italics, and they do that for a really good reason, because the choice of the verb is really, really important. So calls on, it says calls on parties, effectively calls on all of the countries, to triple adaptation finance, and calls on is literally the most weak and woolly version of verb that they could possibly have chosen. There's literally a menu of verbs that you can choose for specific types of sentence in a legal text, and calls on is at the bottom. So that's the first thing to say. They call on parties to triple adaptation finance by 2035. Now, developing countries, a big group of them had said that they wanted not only did they want it by 2030, a tripling, but they also wanted a specific number. So they wanted tripling to 120 billion dollars a year. We've got this much bigger thing now, which is tripling from an online baseline, which is probably 2025, but we don't know, and it's all quite vague and calls on. Right. And of course, in terms of a parallel, do you think back to the original climate finance pledge, all the way back in the 2000s, when was that 2008? I think that was first conceivable, made 2009, which was meant to be for a hundred billion dollars a year to flow from higher income to lower income countries. That target of 100 billion a year was only hit right at the end of the 10-year period, didn't it? It took more than a decade to actually get those amounts to flow. And so, as you say, if the language is going to cause on, it's the weaker kind of language that does not presumably inspire a lot of confidence in this money actually flowing. I mean, I guess we'll see, ultimately, what this comes down to, at the end of the negotiations, the way it was, was the EU was saying, we really wanted to talk about mitigation. We really wanted to talk about fossil fuel road maps getting off fossil fuels. And sure, we can be pushed. You can push our headlines on adaptation finance. We can go firmer and faster, but only if you agree to something on fossil fuels. And that became like the ultimate standoff at the end. And since there was a complete, very, very firm red line on fossil fuels from lots of quite a number of countries, that meant that we ended up with the woolly language on adaptation finance. I just think money is what it all comes down to. And going back to my previous comments about adaptation and mitigation sort of having these two diverging paths. I will be watching when it happens next year in Turkey, which has been decided, you know, how much does the debate begin pitting adaptation dollars against mitigation dollars? There's only so much money to go around. We've already seen a big debate about public health dollars and climate dollars. And I think, I think that's something that could likely happen. And it raises the question of, well, how should clean energy be developed in in lower income countries? And the argument has been, well, rich countries will develop it. And it'll just work out that it'll then be deployed in lower income countries. And that's far from a guarantee. I think we could very much see clean energy technology be deployed and richer part of the world while poorer countries remain based on fossil fuels. As we've seen, lastly, I also worry that to the degree money goes into adaptation. I know it'll be the richer countries that can deploy novel technology to put out the wildfires. For example, leaving lower income countries further behind. And you know, this is this is the sticking point. And you know, the one random topic to throw in there, but it's relevant from a cost perspective is that the sudden rise in discussion about solar geoengineering and how that promises to be a controversial but very affordable way to lower the global temperature. And we've already seen some discussion of that in the last few weeks. And I anticipate it'll be a bigger part of our conversation going forward. And this is the idea of what putting some, is it hydrogen sulfide? What is the the product you'd put in the air? Right. It would be a type of pollution particle that dims the sun in a way that would lower the global temperature, a temper rarely. Now, there's been a lot of signs on this and I don't want us to get to a hub track because this is certainly a can of worms. But at a high level, it's a very affordable technology that we already basically know how to deploy. And I just worry and wonder how that that jargonat will enter the conversation. Yes. Are we really seeing any government starting to take that seriously though? It feels like one of those ideas that occasional sort of scientists, somewhat fringe thinkers, maybe some of the tech entrepreneurs like the idea of it because it seems like a kind of technological fix to climate change. Do you think it's actually going to move towards the policy mainstream? I think it is. I'm working on a story about it right now. You're seeing startups be invested in that that would aim to do this. I think you often see governments as a lagging indicator. So you're seeing sort of entrepreneurs and scientists inching toward this and then governments will inevitably have to address it. And you know, I am just suddenly seeing it everywhere. And just in the media, you know, I think the Atlantic and the New Yorker and political magazine, all in the last week, I've had major articles about it. I interviewed Bill Gates about it a couple weeks ago. And my story will feature his comments. I'm just seeing a shift here. And it's a significant one that we should watch closely. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That is definitely going to be something to watch. We should come back to that definitely on a future show, I think. LNG 2026 is the premier global conference and exhibition for the LNG industry, taking place in Doha, Qatar on the 2nd of the 5th of February 2026. Under the theme leading LNG powering today and tomorrow, the executive programme will feature cleaner in spotlight sessions with global industry leaders discussing key LNG sector opportunities and strategic topics from across the industry's value chain. The event will highlight how LNG can meet growing demand for energy, drive economic development and enable a lower carbon future. It'll also explore issues including the impact of AI, changing ESG regulations, emerging low carbon fuels including hydrogen and ammonia and ways to cut methane emissions. To understand where the industry is heading, LNG 2026 is the place to be. By attending, you can join the conversation, network with global leaders, explore the exhibition floor and experience Doha first hand. Register for a delegate pass at lng2026.com. Got power? At Hythium, we make sure the answer is always yes. Recognise seven times as a BNF tier one best provider and rank top two globally for battery shipments for 2025. Hythium delivers safe, reliable and profitable energy solutions that keep the clean energy transition powering forward, let green energy benefit all. Trusted worldwide, built to last. Discover more at www.hythium.com and let's talk energy that works for good. Just going back though to Amy's point, Lisa about sort of there's a finite pool of dollars and these can be allocated between mitigation and adaptation. What about the impact of the falling cost of low carbon energy? Is it not the case that because cost of low carbon energy, particularly renewables have fallen very significantly and continue to fall and those costs are very often lower in low and middle and come countries than they are in developed countries where in the sorts of issues often add to the complexity of getting projects developed and so on. Doesn't that mean that you will continue to see a transition to low carbon energy and therefore a curbing of emissions growth at least if not actual reductions in emissions and maybe also in time reductions in emissions coming in those learned middle income countries so that actually the need for large transfers of resources from higher income countries to lower income countries to pay for investment in renewables and so on is actually going away. I know what do you think? I wouldn't necessarily tie both of those things together. I think in theory, as we deploy more low and zero carbon technologies as those costs have come down, we get more for every dollar invested, we get more output for that. So yes, but I think the amount of investment is we're still kind of in a situation where the amount of money that we need is never going to be met in the short term. Like we need so much investment and infrastructure in the energy sector globally to just give energy access to the billions of people that don't have it that we are like far behind on just that metric of you know providing energy access. But thinking about what Amy was saying and this question about dollars spent and are we going to run into a situation where you know we have really a strong competition. It probably always should have been a strong competition but in the past decade, it's really been mitigation and adaptation has been secondary or even below secondary in terms of prioritization. But I think the way our industries look at it, they look at what can we get multiple benefits for. Now is this going to solve all the adaptation problems? No, but there are certain aspects of adaptation where you can get mitigation and adaptation at the same time and you can do it very affordably and you can get public health benefits. I'm thinking about building technologies for example buildings 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It's where people shelter. It's where people live. It's where people can be made more comfortable if we do this right. So that's just one example where we do have commercially available technology. Now of course there are still issues with making sure that all countries have the resources to make those investments. But we need to look at all technologies and back to Amy's point. Yes, I mean I think if there are technologies that can be transformative in the way that technology holds promise, we need to look at everything because we are running out of time. Until point Lisa that you're making earlier about the role of the private sector, there's a very interesting report I saw which we would becans he contributed some data analysis to I think from the climate policy initiative talking about the importance of equity investment and talking about how really for low income countries it's actually much more important to get equity investment to flow for climate mitigation for emissions reduction in particular and clearly then the way you can do that is if you have commercially viable projects that the private sector wants to invest in. Do you think we're seeing progress in that? Is it actually becoming more appealing for the private sector to invest in low carbon energy in low income countries around the world? I think what they need as a foundation is just basic fundamentals to protect their investments. So they need regulatory legal certainty. They need known and trusted partners. They need to cut down risk. So I think the appetite is there. It's just they need you know where you're going to see investment is where you have all that full package together and what's happening much more now than say 10 years ago is all the parties and the investment community are looking to fill those risk gaps and that is what is exciting. So I think the next several years will be telling but I think that message is also much clearer now and I think the role of the Paris Agreement and the nationally determined contributions those are three words nobody like outside the climate world would even pay attention to but basically like national climate plans that have been proposed and repurposed that drives this conversation about what are the enabling environments for investment. I can tell you like my first 15 years in the process that's what the business community was talking about and they weren't as willing to kind of be creative and think outside their comfort zone but countries all countries were kind of well you should just come and meet us where we are and now there's much more of a convergence of the two worlds. So I think what's going to make it more accelerated in developing countries is going to be the recognition of what it takes to attract investment in a sustained manner. I think one big elephant in the room in this in this component is China and China is fast moving to deploy it's been doing this for decades but deploying is clean energy around the world we're seeing it even more I think Pakistan is a great example of where its solar energy is growing because it's getting solar panels from China are extremely cheap and the you know this opens up a whole new conversation of how how does the world decide about how much it wants to depend on China versus moving fast on clean energy and you know we did see China step somewhat into the void of the US at this cop I would love to hear more from Simon and Lisa on that but you know we also heard from some China officials there that they were disappointed that the US has stepped back so it's not like China is trying to you know take over everything the US was doing in terms of global leadership but they've you know so that's one big trend that I'm seeing and then you know with US being the world's biggest producer of oil and gas you know you there's really a stark source right there yeah great point so what is your sense of it Simon how did you see the role of China a cop 30 yeah it's really fascinating so my colleague Anna Kapitala our China analyst basically spent the the first week in Belém camped out in the China Pavilion I mean not literally but but more or less and she was really just like really closely watching for the signals you know how they're talking about this there were you know there were so many newspaper articles in the run up to cop about you know is China going to step into a leadership role now the US is stepping back you know is it going to be about China cooperating with the global South and I mean it's quite fascinating in a way because you know that sort of climate finance conversation you know mitigation finance particularly yeah I think people say that and then you immediately think oh well this is about the West you know giving money to poor countries to invest in renewables or whatever and and sure you know like actually to the point about is this a trade-off with adaptation finance EU climate commissioner Hockstra said very explicitly after the summit sure we're going to raise adaptation finance but that's not going to be a bigger bill for EU taxpayers we're just going to basically put money that was going towards other things towards adaptation instead but then on you know so so there's that going on and you know this of you know lack of sufficient climate finance from from developed countries but then on the other hand you've got this as Amy says this huge kind of surge of clean energy exports from China we publish some really fascinating analysis earlier in the year looking at exactly where those exports are going and I can tell you it's literally every you know all around the world but particularly big big developing countries Brazil Malaysia Pakistan you mentioned already Saudi Arabia is a fascinating one not just solar panels but huge investments by by Chinese firms in in solar panel factories because Saudi Arabia burns tons of oil to generate electricity and they've worked out that solar is so cheap they might as well generate solar power and then they can sell more the more of the oil overseas right so I mean it you know that that is like such a you know so so sort of regardless of what China is actually saying at the cop you know how much of a leadership role you know so to be clear anarchist said she was watching Greg carefully and they they deliberately avoided saying anything about leadership the people talking about Chinese leadership in the China Pavilion were not Chinese there were other people like Selwyn Hart one of the kind of UN climate people talking about Chinese leadership the Chinese themselves didn't want to talk about that but then what they're doing on the ground you know matter what they're doing in the negotiating halls what they're doing on the ground is actually making already a really big difference to emissions around the world yeah that is really fascinating and actually as you say Saudi Arabia really first aid example I watched on YouTube recently a speech that was given by Saudi Arabia's energy minister at their future investment forum in ReAD two weeks ago and the whole subject that he wanted to talk about was power and in particular how Saudi Arabia had this incredible low cost power generation and he highlighted low cost wind and low cost solar as two of the prime examples of that so as you say it's really interesting the way that the transition to low carbon energy is cropping up in perhaps some unexpected parts of the world I mean to your point about China and talking about Chinese leadership I mean you you were saying that China didn't talk about being a leader China almost talked in the opposite the net about you know there was that I saw a statement from someone saying China does not want to be a leader doesn't want to go ahead of everybody else in cutting emissions and of course anytime anyone talks about Chinese climate leadership you always get the push back in terms of we'll look how much new coal for generation capacity they're building was it 48 gigawatts I think they added last year and so on so but this way it's a mixed picture is it not that in some respects China is advancing a transition to a low carbon future in some respects it absolutely isn't I don't know Lisa what do you think well I just keep looking at the data year after year see that the United States is number two to China in global energy transition investment and then you look at the list and see who's next so they are leaders depending on the metrics but I agree it's it's a very complex situation and I still hold hope you know especially driven by the the subnational leaders that represent you know much more than half of the US GDP and more than half of the US population you know they were there as well representing what they're doing on the ground in their states and jurisdictions you know we're not out of it you know US is in the game so Simon want to go back to something else you were talking about you talked about the the language around fossil fuels and transitioning away from fossil fuels this clearly and was a very contentious issue as you were saying Lisa in that last week of the talks in particular there was a big push from a large number of countries I think it was more than 80 countries that wanted a commitment to saying something about transitioning away from fossil fuels in the final statement in the end that didn't appear there after a strong resistance from a number of other countries to putting that in does this whole debate matter at all do you think I mean I think the fact that the world's no language on transitioning away from fossil fuels was taken by some people to be evidence of another failure at COP 30 so Simon what do you think well so very quickly to recap for your listeners in case they're not up on where this strange phrase transitioning away from fossil fuels actually came from Lisa you mentioned earlier on about the global stocktake this is under the Paris agreement that every five years we collectively have a moment to reflect and see how we're doing and that concluded in Dubai at COP 28 two years ago one of the things that they agreed coming out of that stocktake was this phrase that everyone was meant to contribute to a global transition away from fossil fuels amongst a list of other things like tripling renewables and so on and that in itself had been like hard force over because lots of countries wanted you know phase out of fossil fuels then other people said how about phase down and then they you know they went off into a backroom somewhere and someone smart came up with a slightly different word that everyone could agree to so that's where transition away came from and everyone agreed to it right it was in Dubai it was in the UAE it's you know it's a petro state people didn't necessarily expect that to happen so that was seen as like quite a big moment a big breakthrough and then since then we've we've had these kind of repeated flare-ups of can we agree to say again what we said back then two years ago and until you talk to your question does that matter I mean I guess you know people see the fact that countries that signed up to that two years ago are no longer willing to say it again and they say well that's backsliding you know what's checking you know is it the geopolitics is it is it the state of the energy transition what is it that's you know meaning that they're no longer willing to restate that but you know this wasn't something that was meant to be on the agenda at this COP I mean it was just as I mentioned you know I said you know lots of countries saying guys we really need to get with the program this is where way off track and hello you know fossil fuels are like by far the biggest source of emissions so we really ought to talk about it again I mean you know it doesn't matter it you know I guess it comes back to that thing about you can't negotiate in the blue zone in the COP you can't negotiate away qualified power stations in China you can't negotiate away you know petrol cars in the states so I don't know whether it you know really matters I guess what we will be watching over the next you know the months ahead is what happens now because you know there wasn't an agreement to have that as part of the formal legal text that came out of the COP but the Brazilian COP Presidency did say that they would launch some sort of process some sort of in way to develop a roadmap away from fossil fuels with a I guess a coalition of the willing what exactly that looks like what it amounts to what I don't know but we we will find out seeing I suppose yeah I think it matters a lot actually just to provide a different opinion I think it matters what the words that they include and whether or not they include fossil fuels I think it was very significant two years ago I remember talking with you about this two years ago Ed and I thought it was a big deal then and what I'm about to say is we are at a very high level but followers of the climate process will understand it at least there wasn't a successful attempt to add some sort of acknowledging the role of fossil fuels into the future things could have been worse I guess is what I'm saying and the fact that it wasn't included you know obviously isn't what a lot of people wanted but the fact that there wasn't some additional language that really tried to reverse what was agreed to and Dubai I think is a success in so far as finishing the races a success to go back to that metaphor I think in the world we're living it it is not outside the realm of possibility that some actors whether it's the Saudis or you know if the Trump administration were to have been there I would have guessed would have definitely tried to insert some line about how fossil fuels are important to humanity going forward that's what they tried to do the first time around with their the panel discussion they held about the importance of coal so I think that's a success in so far as it wasn't something positive about fossil fuels wasn't included and I think that's significant right so another issue that could be read in a couple of different ways I think is this question of the NDCs that Lisa mentioned so these new nationally determined contributions the commitments from different countries to cut their emissions that was meant to be originally the key focus for this COP was an update of every country's NDC making it more ambitious to put the world on track for an emissions pathway that would lead to achieving the Paris goals fundamentally global warming when you look at what actually came out both in the reviews of existing NDCs and the new commitments the one made the work quite a lot of new commitments I think there were 86 new NDCs were out there weren't there no we're up to something more like 120 something by now I think a lot came in really like oh wow okay right okay so a lot more NDCs were out there but it is the case I think I'm right in saying this not like that there is not a single major economy that is on course to meet its goals under its NDC for reducing emissions by 2030 and even if you take all these NDCs and I think this probably includes all the new ones your talking about Simon there is still a trajectory for global emissions that is not on track to meet the goals of the Paris agreement even after all these new NDCs have been published is that right yep that's 100% right is I don't know if it's exactly 15% but it's all that order I mean I guess what I would say is that during the the the UN climate body published an update on their assessment of where these new pledges get us and they published a really great graph with that I think I'd encourage your listeners to find it it was shared on social media by Simon Steele and it basically shows you know because sure like 50 only cutting emissions 15% by 2035 or 12% whatever it is that sounds pretty bad you know we're still still pretty much on track for about two and a half degrees of warming give or take and depending on who you ask but the reason this graph was I think really good was that it showed where we were headed 10 years ago and effectively you know you had a we're able to see this if you're just listening but we had this graph going way up into the sky and it was heading for like four degrees three and a half four degrees and now we've got this graph which is like sure flattening off starting to go down a bit now not going down there is steeply as we would need to if we wanted to you know get back to one and a half degrees of warming by the end of the century but significant progress nonetheless and I would say I mean of course not all of those policies will be enacted but there'll be new things that we can't think about you know and if we really were to scale enough to reduce our emissions globally by 10 to 15% in the next decade we would have dynamic impacts that we can't forecast now so that assumes a very static you know snapshot and time view and I think the key thing is that we keep moving forward and as you've said repeatedly ed these technologies in many cases are less expensive than they were five or 10 years ago they're much more readily available and they are you know deployable and understood by the marketplace and so we're in a much different position than we were 10 years ago and I can't you know rattle off necessarily all the stats that I heard over the two weeks but that's certainly one that Simon talked about in 10 years we did make a difference and it wasn't an insignificant a difference it was a big difference but then there are many other metrics we can look at and it's because we are driving in this direction we have an annual accountability in a range of forms but in particular at the cop where people come and say this is where I'm at and this is where my problems are and this is where I need help and you know we need that transparency over time so I think that's what's important about this and it's not just large emitters it is potentially any country that wants to have a voice and we don't have another setting where that can occur right so we've talked about adaptation we've talked about climate finance we've talked about the indices about the statement of fossil fields interested in kind of final thoughts how did this leave you feeling about the effort on climate change overall and the world's ability to address this we're going to be back here again I'm sure it'd be great to talk to all of you again a year from now after cop 31 she's going to be in Turkey how I hope to allow you that the world is actually making any real progress on this issue Amy what do you think I am going back to the running metaphor and Lisa's comment that this is a marathon you know when you run a marathon it's not like you run every single mile at the exact same pace so I don't know where we're at in the marathon but we're not done and you know we finished this tough round and I think it's an important realignment and re-adjustment of the political realities and I like to think in stark terms or on a scale of 1 to 10 how hopeful am I I'm on a 6 or 7 maybe 5 or 6 some are between 5 and 7 that's where I would put my final answer yeah that's pretty good that's you know I think greater than 50 percent I don't hate those odds Simon what do you think what's your score I mean I you know I think I'm in quite a similar place to Amy I mean listen we should be really clear about this two and a half degrees of warming is really really bad right we're already seeing pretty disastrous impacts around the world in terms of extreme weather events and so on at nearly one and a half degrees so we're not heading to a good place but we you know genuinely we're doing a lot better than than we could have been and there's always the potential to keep going further right it's not over we're not doomed to two and a half degrees we can keep making progress I think next year's going to be fascinating because there's this very complicated arrangement between Turkey and Australia who both wanted to host the cop it's going to be in Turkey but Australia is going to be president and negotiations although technically I believe Turkey's still going to be it sort of holding the gavel you know the literal gavel that they bring down at the end of the summer it would be fascinating to watch also really interesting is that Australia was one of the countries pushing for a road map away from fossil fuels and I understand this is you know that this isn't completely confirmed but I'm pretty sure that Turkey was on a list that hasn't yet been made public of countries that were opposing a road map away from fossil fuels so just right there off the back you can see that there's potential for complexity next year but you know this is messy as Lisa said it's not linear so yeah it's always fascinating and I guess that's you know what it's a great area to be working and writing about well I would just say I mean the gravity of the situation definitely weighs on me I just got back today so the day that we're recording this so it's still very much front of mind but the process showed persistence and resiliency and it's an institution right it's not the goal in and of itself it's a facilitating process to help governments and people tackle an extremely complex set of challenges so I think I'm glad as as Amy said we didn't see any significant backsliding and we're just going to have to keep focused on driving ahead yeah and certainly it's going to be a great to keep talking to all and to see how much progress what progress is made when we come to the next cop and beyond many thanks Amy you're very welcome thanks again for having me on many thanks Lisa thank you many thanks Simon thanks great to talk to you all yeah it's been great talking to you all so we were talking in that conversation about climate finance and the need to mobilize capital to pay for climate adaptation and emissions reduction in low and middle income countries to take into that subject in more detail I talked to Jan Piero Natchee who is the managed director of a climate strategy and delivery of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development the EBRD hello Jan Piero welcome to the show good afternoon how are you yeah very good thanks very good great to see you so you've just been at cop 30 you want to just tell us a little bit about your general impressions of the conference I've seen contrasting views about cop 30 that's all Simon steel the executive secretary of the UNF triple C saying that climate cooperation is alive and kicking keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet that was his quote but I've also seen people describe the talks as a complete failure that didn't really make any real progress on all the big issues relating to climate change that they were supposed to be tackling what's your sense of it well I would distinguish I would say from the negotiations the former negotiations and the rest of the event maybe let me start from the the latter component because you know it was a very well attended cop with many people from the financial sector from of course the country representation country delegates but also serious society you know I haven't seen a cop so well contributed and participated as this one right the demonstration for example outside there were very welcome by the the participants because they brought a positive energy and also managed to to bring to the tension of the participants what the real issues are and the very fact to be in the lamp I guess everybody again we're looking into the lamp with a mix of curiosity and perhaps also trying to understand what the city would look like and you know how the the whole setting would look like and okay despite some a bit of troubles at the beginning and we know about the fire but I must say that first of all the city itself was very well prepared very welcoming was a very positive environment within and outside the cop so that part I think was was very positive a lot of people a lot of interactions at all levels when it comes to the negotiations I think both sides have a point because I believe Simon is right you know ultimately an outcome has been delivered certainly few important topics where high in the agenda of course the launch of the tropical forever forestry fund which is you know set I think it important precedent in terms of rewarding you know environmental services equally the final outcome while perhaps a bit below expectation particularly when it comes to fossil fuel exit but at the same time clearly advanced the awareness and the importance you know of looking at pathways for a exiting fossil fuel so the fact that many many countries you know ultimately pushed in this direction I think was a positive signal and to an extent unprecedented it is not the first time that he's been talked about but the first time there was such a coalition of countries from advanced countries from developing countries so that coalition in my view is a positive signal but also would represent a core of interactions and convergence which in my view provides a lot of hopes for for the forthcoming cop but also you know between now and cop 31 the other positive signal I believe was a strong emphasis on adaptation this was a topic that was discussed across you know multiple conversations multiple events and clearly this aim to increase substantial adaptation finance was very central in many conversations and I can tell you that was also the pressure that as mdb's were being exposed to because you know clearly there is a significant ask for mdb's to step up on adaptation finance yes so mdb's for people who might not know multilateral development bags so that is including the vbrd yeah let's talk a little bit about that adaptation finance then so you had a statement on that as you say it does seem to be an area where a lot of people are calling for these multilateral development banks to do more not least because adaptation finance is going to people I talk to in the private sector very often something the private sector finds really difficult to do it's hard to design and develop projects that have an obvious commercial return to them which is the kind of thing obviously that a private sector bank likes to finance is that right do you think is that why there is a particular role for these mdb's in that area of adaptation I think there is and I think we've been quite clear both in terms of activity and outcomes but also in terms of signals that we provided you know before and during the copy in terms of the concrete outcomes you may have seen that in the mdb's the multilateral development banks we issue the statement on the Monday on the 10th of November where we ultimately reiterated our commitments to do more adaptation we shared some of the climate finance results of 2024 we show that you know strong progress in the provision of adaptation finance particularly towards low and middle income countries but it's true that while the economic case for adaptation investment is increasingly clear the commercial clays is more difficult to make so that's an error where we need to work more substantially and how do you interpret this increased focus on adaptation then does it reflect a recognition that the goals of the Paris Agreement are not going to be met there actually global warming is going to exceed two degrees c and goal of the Paris Agreement was to limit it to well below two degrees and so if that is the case if we are on course for significant warming still to come we are just going to have to adapt to that and that's why let's say there is this increased demand for adaptation finance well I would not put necessarily the questioning in this way because there is not a zero sum game at the end of the day we need to do as much as we can to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases at the same time indeed invest and preparing the cities the businesses the infrastructure we have to deal with with global warming so the way I see it you know first of all yes there is an issue in terms of the maintaining the temperature goal you know well below two degrees you know we know that much more needs to be done there are some positive signs for example the very substantial growing of renewable energy capacity that's been installed in the last few years last year in particular and that trend is not stopping so that's a positive sign it's true that you know clearly the emissions are not declining to the expected we we want but we should continue to work in that election as I said before the signal about you know the fossil fuel pathway in my view is a positive one that you know will probably continue to coalesce interest from many many countries now what I would like also to reflect because you know clearly Paris Agreement has some objectives but as a framework you know continues to represent a valid operational and policy framework because ultimately push the responsibility on countries but also provide the mechanisms for trying to support you know international cooperation for example including in terms of the development of the carbon market so the Paris Agreement per se I think as still the structure and the the type of components that can deliver clearly it's about the willingness of individual countries and you know alliance of countries to ultimately act upon it and when it comes to adaptation finance certainly the need to invest more it's just not a matter of finance it's also a matter of regulation is a matter of planning but is also an element of a improved risk assessment tools and models that are recognized by the market so that you know the all financial sector can equilibrate its risk analysis to reflect physical and at risk but it's also an element of improving the way regulation works standards and planning so it's not only a matter of investment it's also a matter of an entire system which is still behind you know because if we if we look at adaptation it's probably where mitigation was I don't know 10 years ago right in terms of the understanding of the implications and how ultimately policy regulation and market mechanisms can play a role in shifting the direction of travel yeah that's a really interesting point so you mentioned COP31 earlier when we look ahead to COP31 a year from now what do you think you're going to be the crucial items on the agenda then and what do you think is going to be important for the global effort on climate change to address between now and then so three main output of COP30 you know the report of the Circle of Finance Minister the report of the High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance and the Baku to Belém Roadmap all these three reports they do three things you know first of all they define the direction of travel in terms of climate finance in a much more rigorous way than in the past second they give clear sickness where the money needs to be deployed and third they speak to the private sector not only they speak to the of course of the policy maker but they also speak to the private sector and this particular last point is particularly important in my view because we see an appetite for private investors to have a clear direction of travel and the clear identification which investments are needed and when the role that these three reports together will play in my view is is going to be quite substantial and we see things happening in the next year so I really hope that the Turkish and Australians authorities are going to to really build on on these three reports and focus on implementation and the second reason of you know mild optimism is also indeed goes into the you know quite unusual process that is going to happen in COP31 because it hosted by Turkey but at the same time the negotiations are going to be led by Australia and the combined convening power of Turkey and Australia in my view can be extremely powerful you know you have a country that speaks to the emerging economies that is integrated with many processes then you have Australia which is of course an advanced economy but also with a strong exposure you know director indirect to the effect of climate change so I hope that the combination of the leadership of you know Australian authorities Turkish authorities will ultimately create that momentum to address some of the elements that have emerged COP30 in Berlin but haven't been fully materialized. Yes that's a great point and it's certainly is going to be interesting to see how that unusual structure plays out a year from now and I hope you'll come back on the edge again to talk to us about it there and talk about what progress has been made in climate finance. For now though jump here and naturally thanks very much indeed great talking to you. Thank you very much all the best. And we're going to leave it there thanks again to Amy Harder Simon Evans and Lisa Jacobson thanks to our producers Stuart Duffy, Toby Bigen's Gilchrist and Dan Cottrell and above all many thanks to all of you for listening we really do value your feedback so please keep that coming and we'll be back soon with all the latest news and views on the future of energy. Until then goodbye.