S04E03 - Simon Weaver

So we are going to start by going a few months back and back to COP 30 in Brazil.

And I was fortunate enough to attend events in both Sao Paulo and Belém and similarly to Baku, which was my first COP, actually.

I was really personally inspired by some of the dialogue and ideas.

But there were fairly mixed views of COP30's overall impact and success.

So it'd be great to understand your take on the latest COP in Brazil and the role of future summits.

You know, what I think was very fascinating to me, because that would have been not my 30th COP, but my 32nd,

because I started

before cops.

What was really fascinating to me, Simon, about this one is it was, to me, abundantly evident that we have really inverted the relationship between push and pull on climate action.

Ten years ago in Paris, there was no doubt that the pull on climate had to come from national governments because These international treaties have to be negotiated and signed and written and drafted by national governments.

And we orchestrated a huge surround sound effect around national governments from private sector and from many other constituents to provide the push for the ambition of the agreement.

This year, COP 30 was exactly the opposite.

And it's been moving in an opposite direction for quite a few years.

But for me, this was the crowning glory where now it's very evident that the pull is coming back.

from private sector, from technology providers, from other constituents.

And that is where progress is being made from some national governments, for heaven's sake.

So that's where the pull is now.

And the push sort of a little bit is coming from national governments.

Some, I should say.

But the push-pull relationship is exactly the opposite to what we had 10 years ago.

It has been inverted.

And that is a good thing.

I totally agree.