Sustainability In Your Ear Transcript: The Climate Action Network's Pre-COP30 Briefing with Rebecca Thissen

Mitch Ratcliffe 0:00
Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society, and I'm your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.

This November, the world's climate negotiators will gather in Belém, Brazil for COP 30. It's been 10 years since the Paris Agreement, and Belém comes on the heels of COP 29 in Baku, which many considered a failure because wealthy nations committed just $300 billion annually to finance climate projects by 2035. That's a figure dismissed by developing countries as woefully inadequate.

Our guest today, Rebecca Thissen, is Global Advocacy Leader for Climate Action Network International, and she's analyzed the plans for Belém with a background in International Public Law and years spent in the trenches of climate justice advocacy. She works at the intersection of finance, economics and climate action, which is unglamorous but essential work to ensure that money flows where it's needed to address climate change.

COP 30 is being called the “Nature COP,” the first major climate summit held in the Amazon. Brazil is proposing bold initiatives like the Tropical Forests Forever Facility. It's a $125 billion fund to pay countries for keeping forests standing. But the conference is already overshadowed by contradiction. A four-lane highway was carved through a protected Amazon rainforest to accommodate the 50,000 delegates expected in Belém. They'll talk about nationally determined contributions to reduce carbon emissions, climate finance, forests, ocean and biodiversity protections, and setting out a roadmap for a just transition to a post-carbon society.

There's growing momentum around new finance mechanisms as well, such as taxing fossil fuel companies, implementing a global wealth tax on billionaires, and addressing the debt crisis that's crushing developing countries' ability to invest in climate action. The question is whether COP 30 can move these ideas from advocacy to actual policy commitments.

So we will talk with Rebecca about climate debt, the problem of treating climate support as a loan instead of a grant, and the role of Climate Action Network's 1,800 member organizations in pushing for justice at COP 30. You can learn more about Climate Action Network at climatenetwork.org—Climate Network is all one word, no space, no dash, climatenetwork.org.

After 10 years, will the Paris goal be reached? It's time to move from promises to justice. Let's see if COP 30 can deliver after this brief commercial break.

[Commercial Break]

Mitch Ratcliffe 2:57
Welcome to the show, Rebecca. How are you doing today?

Rebecca Thissen 3:00
Hi, Mitch, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well.

Mitch Ratcliffe 3:04
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us about COP 30, which, you know, is 10 years since the Paris Agreement. I don't think anybody's satisfied with the progress we've made, and this has been called a critical juncture for decisive global climate action. What are the major issues that we need to be discussing at Belém?

Rebecca Thissen 3:21
Well, the agenda for COP 30 is definitely very packed. There are many things that are on the table and many things that need to be decided in Belém.

But maybe before commenting on the specific negotiation and the agenda, I just wanted to remind us of the context we are in when it comes to COP 30, and it's a very challenging context. So I think we have to acknowledge that not only is it a very challenging context externally. I mean, the geopolitical situation we are in is, I think, unprecedented when you look at the trade wars ongoing, the genocide happening in Palestine and many conflicts around the world, but also the retreat, mostly of international cooperation across the board. And, you know, just the fact that official development assistance, for example, has been slashed by developed countries recently in 2024 and then in 2025. So all those elements are making COP 30's context very challenging.

But then also internally, when you look at where we are after the Paris Agreement, the Brazilians have hell of a task in front of them to continue to make people believe that the COP space is worth our energy and our investments. So in terms of what exactly is on the table, we always have to dissociate between what's formally on the table. So what are the, you know, formal negotiating tracks where we have to expect formal decisions, and then what's on the political agenda? And of course, both are very important, but it's a different type of expectation, so to say.

So on the formal agenda, I'll just list the items, and then we can go back to them if you wish. And, um, so one very important topic that's going to be discussed in Belém is the just transition work program. And at CAN International, we believe that it's one of the potential main outcomes we can get out of the COP.

The second one is the Global Goal on Adaptation, which is, you know, a very important topic for the African group of negotiators, or many vulnerable countries. Adaptation and resilience building are critical parts of climate action.

And the third one is the Global Stocktake. So, you know, in Dubai, we agreed on this Global Stocktake five years after the Paris Agreement, and now the question is how to implement this decision, and already think ahead of the next Global Stocktake that would happen in 2028. So that's where the technical things.

And just to finish on the kind of political, we also need to see all countries or parties to the Paris Agreement submitting their climate plans, what's called NDCs, right? Nationally Determined Contributions. So that's also very important. It does not have a formal negotiating track, but politically it's essential to understand whether or not we are on track to meet the Paris Agreement objectives.

Mitch Ratcliffe 6:13
Based on the early NDCs that have been shared, it doesn't look as though we are on track. Will this—will the negotiators ultimately come to terms with that during this session, or do you think that this is another kick-the-can-down-the-road moment?

Rebecca Thissen 6:30
It's a very, very good question. And I think everybody is a bit speculating on how this NDC situation and this Ambition Gap would be treated at COP. The hope, I think, is to have very early on the recognition of where we are and what the gap is, maybe even already at the heads of state level. So in the leaders segment, you know, we always open the COP with heads of state giving speeches and new commitments. So that's this year a bit different than other years. It's separated from the COP, so it's before the COP even starts. Usually it's the two first days of the COP. Now it's separated, but yet it's still a very important political momentum, and we would hope that there is a collective recognition of this Ambition Gap, and hopefully maybe also some countries already acknowledging that they are not doing enough, and that they would maybe submit enhanced plans moving forward, eventually at COP 31 for example. But also, I think an important recognition would also be that the lack of ambition is linked to the lack of finance and adequate support that has been provided to developing countries.

Mitch Ratcliffe 7:39
You mentioned the fact that a lot of the Global North is pulling back from just general aid, not necessarily climate aid even. I don't even think a lot of them are thinking about it. And the COPs serve an important purpose. It focuses our attention on an annual basis on the topic. But do you also think that at this point in the movement that we need a more decentralized approach to the way that we are doing these negotiations?

Rebecca Thissen 8:06
I have always been convinced that was the case. Actually, I think we all fall into the trap of only talking about climate and climate action around the COPs and hoping that those would actually solve the whole climate crisis, right? So they are an essential and critical component of the climate action and a very important moment for the climate movement to come together, elevate certain issues, shed the light on specific laggards or champions and, you know, put the kind of political pressure we need.

But those two weeks will never solve the whole problem we are facing, right, when it comes to structural investment, capacity building, infrastructure and industry building, etc., etc. So I think we have to use the COP as kind of a compass to implement the Paris Agreement. But then effort has to come at the regional, the national, the local level, all year long, and just expecting those two weeks to be enough would never suffice. No.

Mitch Ratcliffe 9:09
So what are the voices that need to be included in the discussion in order for this really to be an effective COP and for the year-round conversation to be impactful as well?

Rebecca Thissen 9:21
So I think it's important to think who should be around the table. And of course, we have, you know, many recommendations and concerns sometimes about civil society participation within the COP, noting, to be fair, that it's one of the most open and transparent multilateral processes where we have access to, you know, if you compare to, I don't know, the World Bank and the annual meetings or the WTO discussions, and it's far from being open to civil society, and we are not welcome at all to those spaces.

So we have to acknowledge that COPs are, you know, somewhere we can still have some influence. And, um, but so the modalities of civil society participation can, in any case, be strengthened. But I think it's also a question of who should potentially be excluded from those calls and from those talks, and including, for example, fossil fuel lobbies, right? There has been calls for years and years to have a stronger conflict of interest policy within the UNFCCC, and it hasn't been agreed as of yet. But I think making sure that those lobbies that are actually working against the very core objective of the Paris Agreement should be excluded from those talks, that would be also very important.

Mitch Ratcliffe 10:37
It does seem like having people in the room who want to make progress would be a good idea. The Climate Action Network is 1,800 or so organizations. Who are they and how do you bring them into this conversation?

Rebecca Thissen 10:52
So, yeah, indeed, we have almost 2,000 members now across all continents and in more than 130 countries. So we structure our work both geographically and thematically. So we have what we call nodes, and so it's, you know, sub-regional, national CANs. So we have, for example, CAN Europe, but also CAN South Africa, CAN Southeast Asia and Pacific CAN, etc., etc. So we are represented through regional and national nodes, where, of course, they do their advocacy and campaigning work towards their national or regional institutions, which is, of course, essential to make sure the messaging and the priorities come across in each of the respective contexts. But then we also organize ourselves through different thematic pillars, trying to actually adjust ourselves to the COP priorities.

Because, historically, CAN, you know, has been mostly focusing on the UNFCCC. So the climate, the international climate negotiation. We tend to now also look at other processes, such as the G20, as I was saying, the World Bank and the IMF discussions, etc. But I mean, the DNA, of course, is the international climate regime, and there we have different working groups where all members can actually join. So people from Africa, Europe, Asia, come together and discuss, for example, energy questions or adaptation science, etc., etc. And that helps us also to be agile, I think, and really on the spot when it comes to, you know, policy and position building and making sure we can follow the negotiation with the technical level required to engage in those spaces.

Mitch Ratcliffe 12:33
One of the interesting things about Belém is that it's at the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Does that location really communicate a commitment to preventing deforestation, or is Brazil, to a degree, playing a positioning or marketing game around how we're describing this COP's goals?

Rebecca Thissen 12:54
This is a complex question, and honestly, I don't know how much I can answer that on the record.

I appreciate there are many layers to my answer. So definitely, I think the emphasis on deforestation, nature conservation is needed and urgent. So in that sense, having a COP in the Amazon. And also, I think the emphasis on communities, right, indigenous people being at the forefront of this crisis is key. And that's also, I think, important to also show that the climate crisis is not only about GHG, greenhouse gas emissions, but also about nature, biodiversity, the environment more broadly, and not just the narrow understanding that some of us have about climate change. But I'm honestly am a bit in doubt of how useful, of how much the fact that the COP would be hosted in the Amazon serves, actually, the purpose of that kind of, you know, sensitivity, bringing in your attention and sensibility to the cause. And first and foremost, because we are actually building a cop, a COP village in a city that was not ready to host such a big event, right? Belém is really small, hasn't been equipped for it. If you look at the airport, at the restaurants, at the hotels, nothing is ready to host such a thing.

So you're wondering, then, what's the goal, if you're actually, you know, building something in the heart of the Amazon that then would be left hanging there and probably not used anymore after the COP is over. So is that really the message you want to send to the world? So I don't know. I'm a bit uncomfortable, to be honest. I understand the message. I understand the purpose, but then I'm not sure going there would actually serve, in the end, the message Lula wanted to send to the world.

Mitch Ratcliffe 15:00
Thank you for your candor. I appreciate it. So with that backdrop, do you think that we're going to have the conversations we need to have?

Rebecca Thissen 15:12
I would hope so. I think we definitely need to have a success at COP 30. It's really important, not only for the COP itself, but also for multilateralism, more widely, and international cooperation in the larger sense, in the context we are facing, as I was referring earlier. But I'm a bit worried that we are trying to achieve too many things at the same time with this COP, and again, hoping that one summit would solve a very complex and deep crisis. And one thing I'm really worried about is the degree of informality we've been seeing coming from the presidency. By this, I mean that beyond the formal tracks I was describing earlier, they're adding a lot of informal outcomes, what we call, often the action agenda, you know. So that's a parallel process to the official negotiating tracks, where you can have plenty of initiatives proposed by a few coalitions of countries or by private actors, philanthropies, etc., etc.

]It always sounds very exciting and much more, much more flashy than, you know, the formal, sometimes boring negotiation, but it has no accountability, no ground in, you know, the real process we're actually following when we go to the COPs. And I'm feeling, I'm fearing that that risks to actually distract and derail the actual, you know, concrete action we need to get out of the COP. And so, because we are in a very complex context, because there are so many figures on the agenda already, bringing us to that kind of informal space may be a very risky bet from the presidency.

Mitch Ratcliffe 16:54
Last year in Baku, they released the Baku to Belém roadmap, and it aims to scale climate finance from $300 billion to $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 and you've criticized an early report about that project as a very low-key solution that doesn't move the needle very far. What do we need to change in terms of climate finance, and particularly how we deploy climate finance?

Rebecca Thissen 17:19
So yeah, let me maybe recontextualize what the Baku to Belém roadmap is. So last year, as you were saying in Baku, we agreed on the new collective quantified goal. So the NCQG in the jargon, which is a new climate finance goal, replacing the previous $100 billion goal. It was a huge disappointment for many observers, for majority of developing countries, I think all of them, basically.

What happened is, in the last hours of Baku, when everybody was sick and tired, literally, we were all sick from the same thing, the Brazilians alongside with Colombia and Kenya, and then other countries joined, proposed this last-minute addition, that was the paragraph 27 of the decision to have this initiative from presidency. So from COP 29 and COP 30 presidency, under the Baku to Belém roadmap, which was then, which would then kind of save the day, so to say, because we had this very low figure of $300 billion to be achieved by 2035 which was nowhere meeting the needs of developing countries, but then that addition was enabling them to at least for the media, you know, in the wider audience, have the more shiny figure of $1.3 trillion.

However, this is a presidency initiative, so it has no legal mandate at all. It's not a negotiated outcome, and it's also, it's in the NCQG decision, but it's an aspirational goal. So it says in the paragraph that all actors are responsible for it. And you know that when you expand those kind of language, you don't know exactly who would actually contribute and who would put money on the table in the end. So I think in the beginning of the year, everybody had some hope that that would maybe save a bit the very bad, backward decision. But it has become clearer and clearer that there is only as much two presidencies can do and as much they want to do as well.

Brazil has been very clear that they know they do not want Belém to be a finance COP again. And so then they have also to manage expectations, right? And they cannot come with a very shiny report if they actually decide to put finance a bit lower on the agenda, which, in my sense, does not make sense, because if you want to have an implementation COP, as they've been saying over and over again, you need to put some finance on the table, right? Otherwise, you're not going to implement any plan.

Mitch Ratcliffe 19:52
A plan without a budget is not a plan. It's an aspiration.

Rebecca Thissen 19:56
Exactly. So the thing I've been reacting on is actually really not the roadmap itself, because, as at the time we're speaking now, we haven't seen the report yet. It's coming out next Monday, so maybe we can chat again, and I can tell you what I think about it. But what I've seen is the contribution of the Circle of Finance Ministers, which is another Brazilian initiative. They have been putting together 34 countries and so 34 finance ministries to input to the final roadmap. So of course, it's coming with this very specific lens, finance ministry lens, which is very different from environmental, climate ministries, right? And they've been outlining a set of solutions and sadly, while we know that finance ministries hold the budget, that, you know, they have so much levers and empowering their hands to actually finance climate action, they've been putting very low-bar solutions and not moving the needle very far. So that's what I've been reacting to.

Mitch Ratcliffe 20:59
They're looking more at the budget than the goals. Sounds like, yeah.

Rebecca Thissen 21:03
And specifically, not to touch so much on the budget or any, you know, ambitious modification to policies and measures, just continuing business as usual with a pinch of salt of, you know, good wording and vocabulary, but no real transformation there.

Mitch Ratcliffe 21:17
I think this is a great place to take a quick commercial break. I want to talk more about finance. We'll be right back.

[Commercial Break]

Mitch Ratcliffe 21:29
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Let's continue the conversation about the upcoming United Nations Conference of Parties in Belém, Brazil. We're talking with Rebecca Thissen. She is Global Advocacy Lead for Climate Action Network International. Rebecca. One of the most troubling aspects about the approach to climate finance these days is that 71% of it is issued as loans rather than grants, and that puts these developing countries on the hook for long-term payback programs. How is this perpetuating or even worsening the debt crisis we know is already afflicting those countries?

Rebecca Thissen 22:03
Yeah, thanks for this question. I think it's definitely one of the critical elements we need to address when we talk about climate finance. And the first thing I want to say is that the latest decision on the new climate finance goal does not address this at all, and that was one of the reasons why we were so frustrated after Baku. We've been repeating for years that if we do not stop this kind of debt-inducing climate finance from flowing to developing countries, you would never solve the whole issue we have faced in the climate crisis.

So just to give you some numbers, we know that approximately 71% of climate finance comes as loans currently, but we also know that the majority of those loans are actually offered on non-concessional terms, which means that it could actually be expensive loans when it comes with expensive interest rates, right? So that's even worse, and we know also that half of the climate finance allocated to least developed countries, LDCs and SIDS, so Small Island Developing States, are provided through loans. So it means that the most vulnerable to the climate crisis are actually receiving half of the climate finance through loans, which is making them even more vulnerable, because they have to be even more indebted because of the climate finance they are receiving.

The countries with the highest share of loans in their climate finance are France, Japan, Italy, Spain and Germany. I think it's also important to know, because often they claim maybe to be climate champions to a certain extent, but it's important to know that they are contributing to the crisis. And so I think we have to see this problem as a vicious circle, right? One starting point is that climate finance is nowhere sufficient to meet Global South needs, right when it comes to mitigation, adaptation or dealing with loss and damage. But then we also know that the majority of the developing countries are now indebted, right? So the debt crisis forces them to reduce their public spending on essential services such as climate action, because they have to prioritize the repayment to their creditors.

We also know that, because of high levels of debt, countries are turning to their natural resources, including fossil fuels, including critical minerals, to generate resources to then repay the creditors. And we also know, lastly, in this vicious circle, that the climate impacts that are actually increasing across the globe are worsening the debt crisis, because extreme climate events will affect countries' debt sustainability, and we know that there are no valid cancellation or suspension mechanisms that work for countries so they are just facing a debt circle because of climate extreme events.

Mitch Ratcliffe 25:06
And one component of that loss and damage financing is—currently there's about $700 million committed, which, of course, is different than actually contributed where the money is in the bank. That's nowhere near enough, based on everybody's assessment who needs to contribute to that funding to make it a viable platform for supporting communities that are displaced by climate change, or simply trying to respond to and mitigate climate change.

Rebecca Thissen 25:33
Well, the same countries who are historically responsible for the climate crisis, right? We know who they are, and so that one of the biggest contributors has now left the Paris Agreement. But there's no other reason for the other developed countries to not fulfill their obligation. And I think the loss and damage story is a very important one. We fought really, really hard already a few years ago now to establish this loss and damage fund, but obviously having a fund that's empty would not have any impact on communities' reality and lives, right?

We had an important board meeting of the loss and damage fund right before this, I think two weeks ago in Manila. So the good thing is that they agreed on the kind of startup phase for the fund. Now that means that funding proposals can be issued to then potentially get some money flowing to loss and damage projects that would also, of course, need to be reflected in the COP discussion, and, you know, the guidance to the fund that would be discussed by parties. But I think it's really important that we do not let loss and damage fall off the hook, which in my perception, has been the case after we established the fund.

I think developed countries have been doing everything they could to avoid talking about loss and damage anymore. Kind of okay, we gave you the fund, but now we don't want to talk about this, which, of course, makes no sense. And one of the consequences of that is that loss and damage is not recognized formally under the NCQG decision, under the new climate finance goal. It has some mention, so we can use those hooks. So we have, let's say, a few little windows to continue to talk about loss and damage finance, but it's far from being recognized as it should, looking at the, you know, the urgency and the importance of the topic for developing countries.

Mitch Ratcliffe 27:27
One of the other initiatives that will be discussed is a proposal from Brazil called the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which is a financial facility. They're proposing $125 billion funding, and contributed a billion so they've contributed one-hundred-and-twenty-fifth of the necessary funding to pay communities to preserve, rather than deforest their lands. What do you see as the opportunities and potential pitfalls of that initiative in the context of the debt conversation that we're having and all of the political give-and-take you see taking place at Belém?

Rebecca Thissen 28:00
Yeah, no, I think that's a very important question as well, because, as I was saying, this TFF initiative is part of the informal agenda Brazil is putting forward. So it hasn't any ground in the formal negotiated outcomes. And so, of course, I think we agree and we share the diagnostic, right, that forest finance faces a huge gap, and we need to find solutions to protect and conserve forests and nature more largely.

But the question is whether the TFF and the TFIF—so the investment vehicle within the TFF—are the right model and the right mechanism to do so, right? We have to remember that it's basically a large investment fund that the Brazilians are putting on the table. And so I think we have questions, technically, how that would actually materialize. But also politically. Technically, I think the first thing we should be very clear about is, if ever this initiative comes to exist, and I think it would be announced very early, in the very early days of the COP, it should not be conflated with climate finance, right?

Any contribution made to the TFF should not be accounted under the new climate finance goal, because of the amount of questions we have around this mechanism, because it's an investment model and not direct contribution to climate finance. I think those two things need to be separated. And so if contributions are made to the TFF by developed countries, they need to be new and additional to—

Mitch Ratcliffe 29:39
So not counted in the other funding at all.

Rebecca Thissen 29:44
I think that's very important also, because we have many questions of who would actually end up paying for this TFF, right? There are different analyses and studies, but of course, we still have many questions as well. But from what we've been reading and, you know, the three different concept notes that have been issued by the Brazilians, we fear that the actual investment model of the TFF will exploit the flaws of the actual international financial architecture to receive higher rates of interest from Global South countries. Because, you know, the way the rules work now is because Global South countries are seen as more at risk based on biased criteria, they pay higher interest.

That will actually contribute to raise funds for the TFF, so those profits generated by the fund goes against our principle that developing countries should not be paying for their own climate finance, right? And that's one of the biggest risks we see with that kind of model. We also have many questions around the governance of the TFF, because the World Bank will now be a trustee similar to the fund to respond to loss and damage, which comes with many questions, but also the fact that the investment model itself would be only governed by sponsors, by contributors. So it's again, moving away from those kind of democratic institutions we could have, such as the Green Climate Fund, you know, where developing and developed countries have similar share.

And then, just to close on that, I think we also have a question on the political rationale behind it. We are leaving Baku with huge frustration, right, Mitch, trust between parties is eroding because of that decision that was taken in COP 29. So we are in need to get signals on finance, you know, signals that support would be adequately provided to developing countries moving forward. That's what we call an implementation COP. But diverting that specific call by proposing, you know, an informal investment mechanism would not make it right. So I think we also have to shift again the priorities where they are and where they're the most needed.

Then there's also the question of—we are calling as Climate Action Network to reform the current financial architecture, because we believe that it's fundamentally flawed against developing country needs, right, because of its imbalances and opaque governance. So the fact that a potential investment model will actually use those flaws against developing countries' needs raises a real question also on the longer term, right? We want to reform a system, but yet we exploit its flaws to fund money to protect forests. That's also something I think we have to put into question.

Mitch Ratcliffe 32:50
It really is a governance issue you're talking about. If I put money in, then the fund is accountable to me, rather than to the people that it is supposed to be serving. So we've inverted the entire small-D democratic approach that we were talking about taking toward climate change. There was a major legal change this year. The International Court of Justice declared that climate change creates legally binding obligations under international law. Does that change the dialogue in Belém at all? Or is that simply going to be treated as an interesting but remote conclusion by a court that doesn't even necessarily have the ability to enforce its rulings?

Rebecca Thissen 33:31
I think it should. The way we read this advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice is just groundbreaking, right? It's creating a new era for climate action, centering the legal obligations, mostly from developed countries, to act, to finance and to support. Whether or not the ICJ AO, to use the jargon, would have sufficient political implications on the COP, remains to be seen, because I've been quite disappointed on how little countries have been, you know, using this advisory opinion in the latest kind of high-level momentum we had before the COP, including the pre-COP. But I do think it's now crystal clear.

Many things are just, you know, confirming what we've been saying for many years, but it comes from the highest court of the world, so I think it's helping. But I think now, for example, when it comes to finance, because we were discussing this, it's clear that we are moving away from this kind of charitable narrative, you know, that climate finance could potentially be a charity or could be even optional. It's not voluntary. It's an obligation in order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, as simple as that. So it's not a question of whether or not you do it. If you signed the UNFCCC, if you committed to achieve the Paris Agreement objectives, you have to provide climate finance if you're developed countries. That's very simple.

I think it's very well articulated by the ICJ. So it's more of a—climate finance is seen as a means to an end to achieve the Paris Agreement, rather than something, you know, that's kind of outside of that scope. So I think that would hopefully help our advocacy work moving forward, but also giving ground to developing countries to claim what they are owed, basically, when it comes to those discussions and negotiations.

Mitch Ratcliffe 35:30
There was recently a pre-COP, because you have to have a meeting to have a meeting. Only about 10% of the countries that are expected to present their nationally determined contributions, that is how much CO2 they're going to emit, showed up with a plan. Does that delay tell us about what the true state of political will is globally with regard to climate change, and how is CAN pushing for the ambitions that we actually need?

Rebecca Thissen 35:56
I mean, definitely, the situation with NDCs is very worrying, not surprising, I must say, but very worrying because of different reasons. I think one, yet again, the biggest emitters and the historical polluters have not done their homework. They are very good at pointing the fingers at China, India and others. But when it comes to doing their own homework and coming with ambitious climate plans, they're absent, and I'm talking here about the EU mostly that just postponed their NDC and came with a very vague engagement in New York, but nothing really binding or groundbreaking.

The second thing, and that's maybe why I'm a bit less surprised and maybe a bit bitter, is that we know that the vast majority of developing countries' NDCs have a conditional component, which means that part of their plans will only be implemented if they receive the finance and the support they require to do so. And obviously, because we know that the finance hasn't been flowing because of the loans story we were talking about, but also because of the very little commitments we've been seeing for the last 10 years when it comes to climate finance, obviously, no adequate plans will come out from the Global South because they don't have the means to implement those.

And thirdly, and that's maybe more of a philosophical question, is this, you know, bottom-up system coming from the Paris Agreement really working? And is this cycle of NDCs really moving the needle for ambition? I'm not sure. I'm not sure because of the two previous reasons, right, that the lack of commitment from historical polluters, the lack of finance flowing, the lack of connection with policy on the ground, right? Because, you know, it's a very high-level meta-conversation we have when we talk about NDCs, often disconnected from the real economy and the real world implications those plans must have. So maybe there are questions also on how we shape those plans to actually answer the needs on the ground for the transition to happen.

Mitch Ratcliffe 38:06
It sounds like an architecture for a perfect storm of finger-pointing and blaming without holding anybody accountable. A lot of folks are listening to this, and they're not going to be there. What can they do to help influence climate negotiations as an individual or hold their government accountable? Which steps should they take?

Rebecca Thissen 38:31
So, as I told you earlier, I think there are many priorities being put at the forefront at this COP, and I think it would help, at least for people who want to achieve something, to pick one and try to force something concrete to come out of this COP. The bet we've been doing as Climate Action Network International, but also with other allies across the world, is to have something meaningful coming out of the just transition work program. T

he reason why we picked just transition is threefold. One, because we believe that it's time to think about climate action differently, not only about, you know, very vague global goals, but actually climate action that works for people—basically people, community, workers—and that's what just transition is about in the end. So maybe thinking, okay, 10 years after the Paris Agreement we've been doing, we've seen some progress. Majority of things have been lagging, even, you know, backsliding. So why not try something different by centering equity and justice as, you know, a pragmatic approach to climate action, not just as a footnote.

And so we think, and the main ask there is to have what we call the Belém Action Mechanism, which is the BAM, and so it's bringing, you know, all the different just transition conversation initiatives that are happening around the globe together to actually really make just transition happen on the ground. So having this kind of, you know, initiative connecting much more the reality of the ground, of the real economy, to the COP space, I think would be something meaningful leaving Belém.

I would say to people, if you're following the COP from afar, you don't know where to look, look for just transition. Talk to your government, talk to your trade unions as well. Because, you know, we've been seeing, and in my context, for example, in Belgium, it has been very tangible as well that many social dimensions of the climate conversation are absent, right? We don't connect social justice to climate justice enough. So why don't we create, you know, much more convergence to those conversations and also by engaging on the just transition conversation in Belém.

The second thing I would say that's very important is to put pressure on the capitals, because it's, you know, again, we focus only on the COP. We are activating ourselves for two weeks, and then we just stop. You have to hold your government or the people you elected accountable. And so that means that you have to put pressure on your climate, environment, finance ministries all year long, and specifically in the capitals where the power lies.

And finally, don't stop talking about climate after the COP. Continue to push for the agenda. We've seen a total disappearance of climate from the general headlines now. We talk about economy, we talk about trade, we talk about the wars, but we don't talk about climate anymore. And I think it's really important that we collectively try to connect the climate crisis to other crises. I'm not saying we should just talk about climate, but climate cannot be absent from the conversation either.

Mitch Ratcliffe 41:48
Obviously, the mass migration is one that many organizations around the world are concerned about on both sides of the political spectrum. Climate Action Network is going to be at the event. How can folks listening follow along with your work at the event?

Rebecca Thissen 42:06
So there are different ways you could do that. We issue every day a newsletter called ECO. So it's a bit technical, but I think if you want to understand a bit what's happening in negotiations, it's a useful tool. We do daily updates on our social media as well, and then you also have, like, media, you know, press releases, and of course, a readout of the outcome right after the COP. So if you don't want to follow the negotiation but know what happened, you can always read our press releases and analyses after the COP.

Mitch Ratcliffe 42:41
Rebecca, thank you very much. We're all going to be following along, and please keep up the good work. We appreciate your time today. Thank you.

[Commercial Break]

Mitch Ratcliffe 42:54
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You've been listening to a conversation with Rebecca Thissen. She's Global Advocacy Lead for Climate Action Network International about the upcoming United Nations Conference of Parties, or COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, and you can follow their reports about COP 30 at climatenetwork.org—Climate Network is all one word, no space, no dash, climatenetwork.org.

The phrase "Conference of Parties" is an odd one, and not just because of its tinny administrative ring, but because the parties affected by climate change are, well, they're all of us, from individuals living in cities, towns, villages and the most remote places on Earth, to the cities, states, nations and corporations that organize our shared resources to make modern life possible. Without a stable climate, we are all facing trouble, but those at the bottom of the economic ladder in the Global South most of all.

A just transition is achievable, even one that doesn't rely on backbreaking loans to developing nations. By thinking in systems together, we can find solutions and roles for everyone involving caring for nature, our one shared resource on which everything relies. Those roles will be filled in the United States to create the circular economy and on every corner of the planet or niche in the economy globally, to achieve a carbon-neutral society. But why not distribute the climate conversation all year long, instead of just the few weeks that COP happens? After all, the issue is now widely understood.

A few weeks ago, Sustainability In Your Ear featured a live session from Climate Week in New York, at which COP X, another people's COP effort spearheaded by environmentalist, rancher, author and the co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, Hunter Lovins, was introduced and announced to the public. She and the COP X team envisioned thousands, perhaps even millions, of local groups building a constant global discussion about taking action to reverse climate change.

Rebecca's comment that COP 30 involves too many issues for a single event makes plain the need for a new decentralized approach to climate policy, one that can integrate the participation of every voice, small and large, that must be heard in order to change policy fairly, in order to innovate, to collaborate and build that post-carbon society. Imagine a world powered by the sun, as author Bill McKibben recently explained on the show, where power is virtually free after the initial capital investment to capture the energy of the sun, without those intermediaries that we pay today, like fossil fuel companies, without the millions of years it takes to turn biomass into petroleum so that we can burn it and warm our atmosphere, without limits on what we can do with sustainable technologies.

We need to make those visions reality. But it doesn't sound like Belém is going to produce answers. How will you be able to judge COP 30's success? Well, I suggest by measuring the commitments made against the funding actually delivered. It comes down to whether this time, the Conference of Parties will deliver breakthroughs that make meeting the Paris Accord goal of limiting atmospheric warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, a threshold that we are passing even as I speak, actually come to pass. And we'll keep watching the story. I hope we have some good news to report.

And I hope you'll also take a look at any of the more than 500 episodes of Sustainability In Your Ear that we've produced to date. Share them with your friends. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. Folks, you're the amplifiers that can spread more ideas so we create less waste. Tell your friends, family and coworkers they can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you for your support.

I'm Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let's all take care of this beautiful planet of ours, partly by paying attention to COP 30. Have a green day.