2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference

He's shown real climate leadership.

He's taken that, you know, COP 27 baton and he's run with it.

He secured the rainforest, which it would have been hugely profitable for him to just go like, you know what? Fuck that.

I'm an old man.

So we were in Shamal Sheikh together.

That was COP 27, I think, right? So that's four years ago.

And that took place just weeks after the devastating floods in Pakistan, right? And it was like this sort of...

coalescence of bad luck, good luck.

So I'll just take the last three years of our attendance at COP, maybe a bit more than three years, and just talk to you about the research and how this research has either been informed at the start by projects and then developed further, or how we've used research from whatever we have done as thought leadership for COPs that we went and spoke about at those conferences, how we used it later on in certain projects and how this was really beneficial for our clients and our projects and our community.

So first, the very first example I wanted to give, which is more of a transportation-related research, was a survey that we had done during COP27 in MENA region, so the Middle East and North Africa.

The reason why we chose that region was that COP27 was happening in Egypt.

So we were looking at Egypt, so that part of North Africa and the GCC, and we're looking at really if people will understand the impact of emissions from transportation as a sector, generally speaking on their carbon footprint.

And the survey showed that 58% of people show that they have ready access to alternative means of greener and cleaner transportation But while this was available, not all of the people that we actually interviewed were actually using them.

An expert on the climate needs of small island developing states, Weisberg currently serves as senior advisor to Jamaica's permanent representative to the United Nations and as an advisor to the Fiji and Palau negotiating teams at COP.

Michael was a leading voice in the development of the mosaic of solutions for addressing loss and damage due to the adverse impacts of climate change, which led to major breakthroughs on the topic at COP27 and COP28.

This framework was developed in collaboration with the Maldivian government and the International Peace Institute, where he is a non-resident senior advisor.

Weisberg served as editor-in-chief of Biology and Philosophy and currently directs the Global Education and Research Alliance.

As you'll hear in today's interview, that's a role he held at various United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Party gatherings, or COPs.

And that includes COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021, COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in 2022, and COP 28 in Dubai in 2023.

As a refresher, COP 28 was notable because it brought about the first ever global stocktake.

That's a process for countries and stakeholders to assess progress toward meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Eli's background is in economics and finance, He served as a senior consultant to the World Bank and before that spent nearly a decade at Morgan Stanley across investment banking, capital markets and senior management.

His policy proposals have been presented at COP27 as a new approach to carbon markets and climate finance.

And his work has been quoted extensively in publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, Washington Post and Bloomberg.

He's advised the World Bank and the United Nations and multinational firms.

Uh, uh, I think most, not all of them, but I think most of the podcasts really were conversations that, um, as I say, were already taking place, uh, in the sector.

Um, but, uh, there were three that I would point to specifically that really were, um, you know, an opportunity to bring, bring the listener inside and those were the three that I did on the ground, uh, in Egypt, in Sharm El-Sheikh at the United Nations, um, uh, uh, Climate Change Conference, COP27.

[coughs] And for COP27, I recorded three podcasts on the ground with participants, uh, with the background noise [laughs] of the, of the, the conference taking place.

But it, it, you know, it was an opportunity not just to have sort of the, uh, insider conversation, but to have it actually, you know, um, uh, in the conference, uh, rooms at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.

How many guest recommended books did you read during your tenure as host? [laughs]