On the ground at COP30: The latest on climate finance and deciphering the jargon

Summary

Podcast Summary: This Week in Global Development

Episode: On the ground at COP30: The latest on climate finance and deciphering the jargon
Date: November 14, 2025
Host: Devex (Kate Warren guest hosting, with Ayanat Mercy, Jesse Chase Lubitz)
Location: Live from COP30 in Belém, Brazil

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Episode Overview

In this episode, recorded live from COP30 in Belém, Brazil, guest host Kate Warren chats with Devex reporters Ayanat Mercy and Jesse Chase Lubitz on the latest developments in climate finance, the unique on-ground experience in the Amazon, and how the complex climate jargon intersects with the global development agenda. The team delves into acronyms, key negotiations, the role of indigenous communities, the evolving food systems conversation, the importance of subnational leadership, and new finance models for climate action.

The episode also features an interview with Sarah Joy Malaba of TICO, focusing on leveraging technology for women’s health and community-driven development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Hosting COP30 in the Amazon – Immersive and Controversial

Timestamps: [00:10]–[03:41]

• Venue & Atmosphere: The team notes both symbolic and practical challenges—daily heat, thunderstorms, and infrastructure issues are a stark reminder of the stakes at COP.
  • “It brings everything to a much more kind of real... to how important it is to figure all of this out.” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [01:48]
• Inclusion of Indigenous Communities: Greater indigenous representation is seen as a major positive compared to previous COPs (e.g., Baku), facilitated by the Amazonian location.
• Hypocrisy & Legacy: Concerns about carbon neutrality and lasting local impact; positive legacy noted with initiatives like a city organic waste recycling program.

2. The Jargon Game: Breaking Down Climate Acronyms

Timestamps: [03:41]–[07:45]

• NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions): Every country’s Paris Agreement-aligned emission and climate plans. Many countries have missed deadlines ([05:04]).
• NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal): The $300 billion per year finance target from developed to developing countries ([06:18]).
• TFF (Tropical Forest Forever Facility): Innovative fund rewarding forest conservation, using an investment model with public and private participation ([06:40]). Some skepticism about equitable payout and risks.

3. Innovative Climate Finance – Forests and Beyond

Timestamps: [07:45]–[10:09]

• New Financial Models: Public and private sector actors—including multilateral development banks (MDBs) like EBRD, AIIB, and EIB—show growing interest in nature-based investment platforms like TFF.
• Potential for Scale: Comparison with the green bond market’s multi-trillion growth; hope for the same trajectory in nature-based solutions (Ayanat Mercy, [09:28]).
  • “Do you think that forests and nature-based solutions could be a trillion dollar market? ...the hope.” — Ayanat Mercy paraphrasing Leslie Mazdorp [09:28]

4. Agriculture and Food Systems Take Center Stage

Timestamps: [10:09]–[12:37]

• Brazil’s Role: As an agricultural powerhouse and a global leader in reducing hunger (lifting 40 million out of hunger recently), Brazil is spotlighted for sustainable food policy ([10:52]).
• Belen Declaration: A non-binding call to invest in smallholder farmers and incorporate hunger/food security in climate policy—a signal that food and ag are now core COP issues.

5. Climate and Development: What’s Happening at COP30

Timestamps: [21:25]–[25:49]

• Negotiation Dynamics: COP’s lengthy two-week format means slow starts but high-intensity endings. The agenda is still fluid, with key decisions awaiting ([21:53]).
• Development Community’s Role: Split focus on both official negotiations and parallel initiatives (like Belen Declaration). Real action often occurs outside formal talks ([24:04]).
• Era of Implementation: Emphasis on getting money into the hands of actors best placed to deploy it—public development banks feel it's “their year” ([25:08]).

6. U.S. Absence, Subnational Leadership, and City-Level Action

Timestamps: [25:49]–[30:39]

• U.S. Federal Absence: Notably, the federal government is absent; California’s Governor Gavin Newsom and other subnational leaders take the spotlight, making bilateral agreements (e.g., with Kenya) ([26:47]).
  • “No one's missing the Americans... if they're not going to be a part of the process, it's better that they're not here trying to derail it.” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [26:47]
• Cities Move Forward: Cities demand direct climate finance; mayors and governors are increasingly central to the climate transition ([28:54]).
  • “Cities want a seat at the table and we want direct climate finance to come to us, which is a pretty big deal.” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [28:54]
• Peer Exchange: City leaders from various global south contexts share practical solutions for waste management and accessing climate finance ([29:50]).

7. Key Funds and Transition Minerals

Timestamps: [30:39]–[35:41]

• Loss & Damage Fund: Rapid development (compared to usual pace), but civil society sees the pace as unbearably slow; only $800 million so far, with first $250 million up for proposals ([30:53]).
• Critical (“Transition”) Minerals: Brazil's lithium reserves spotlighted; challenge of ensuring countries with natural resources retain more value locally, rather than exporting raw materials ([33:19]).
  • “If a nation can't develop with fossil fuels, what can it develop with? And these are the things that are going to power the energy sector in countries.” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [34:55]

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Special Interview: TICO & Tech-Enabled Women’s Health

Timestamps: [13:04]–[21:14]

Guest: Sarah Joy Malaba, Co-CEO of TICO

• Personal Motivation: Driven by the loss of her parents to HIV and her experience raising siblings, supported by networks of women ([13:13]).
• TICO Model: Digital platforms track adolescent girls' access to health services in informal settlements. Each girl receives a unique QR-coded card, enabling real-time, granular data collection without requiring personal digital access ([14:39]).
• Collaboration: Partnerships with public and private clinics, community mobilizers, and retailers under shared values—trust, no-cost services, and performance-based support ([16:51]).
• Award Impact: Investment enables deepening of gender-based violence (GBV) responses, more survivor-centered approaches, and expanded integration with existing health services ([18:29]).
  • “We are looking at impacting 3.5 million girls at minimum, with an integrated model...” — Sarah Joy Malaba [18:29]
• Key Takeaway: Long-term investment and integrated models are vital for adolescent girls’ health and resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think there's a lot of value that I’m not even sure I expected from just like feeling uncomfortable while you're having these conversations...” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [01:48]
• “It's a massive loss to not have [the U.S. government] here. Like, no climate movement can be as full without them because... second biggest emitter.” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [27:35]
• “We can tell where the health system breaks down for her if she comes for one or multiple services... we can leverage on technology as a means of finding her, following her and supporting her user journey so that she does not only start on care, but can continue on it.” — Sarah Joy Malaba [14:39]
• “Cities want a seat at the table and we want direct climate finance to come to us, which is a pretty big deal.” — Jesse Chase Lubitz [28:54]

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Episode Timeline – Key Segments

• 00:10–03:41: Hosting COP in Belém: Indigenous inclusion, climate setting, hypocrisy, and legacies
• 03:41–07:45: “Acronym Game” – NDCs, NCQG, TFF explained
• 07:45–12:37: Nature-based finance & Brazil’s food policy at COP
• 13:04–21:14: TICO interview: digital health in Africa, GBV integration
• 21:25–25:49: COP negotiation structure, development community’s role
• 25:49–30:39: U.S. absence, rise of cities and governors, bilateral activity
• 30:39–35:41: Climate funds, Loss and Damage fund update, critical minerals
• 35:41–End: The human side – local culture, wrap-up, reporting plans

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Further Coverage

• Daily reporter’s notebook and special newsletters from the Devex team available for COP30 updates.
• Extra resources at Devex Newswire.

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This detailed summary captures the central conversations, insights, and energy from a fast-changing COP30, offering natural-flowing highlights and context for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

Foreign.

[Ayanat Mercy]

My name is David Ainsworth and you're listening to this week in Global Development hosted by myself, Richard Kamba and Adva Saldingham.

[Kate Warren]

I'm Kate Warren and delighted to be guest hosting this session live from COP30 in Belem, Brazil, where I am joined by two of our reporters, Ayan at Mercy and Jesse Chase Lubitz, who have been covering the ground here in hot and balmy Swahili, Belem, and bringing you insights from what's happening, from all the negotiations and conversations happening within the official conference rooms as well as outside of them. So, Jesse Ayanat, I am delighted to be joined with you in person here today.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Thank you so much. It's nice to be here.

[Ayanat Mercy]

So excited to be here.

[Kate Warren]

So, you know, I think that it's a very fitting and there's been a lot of, I think, criticism, controversy about choosing to host this very large convening in the Amazon where there had to be some destruction to create the infrastructure for housing people here. I'd be curious to know what you're hearing from people now that they're here and seeing and experiencing it. I mean, one thing that I will note is that we are, you know, experiencing heat while we're having many of these conversations. And I was part of a panel earlier this day. We're talking about extreme heat and its impacts on, on health. And I was joking. It was like an immersive experience if we're really feeling what we're talking about. So I think there's many people who do see, okay, there's value to be hosting these conversations in these places. There's a lot of indigenous communities being able to participate. But there's the obvious hypocrisy that can come with the bringing thousands of people on planes into a place like this. So curious. Just, you know, what has been the temperature that you've been hearing? Jesse, I'll start with you.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Yeah, I think immersive experience is a great way to put it. The daily thunderstorms kind of breaking through the ceiling of the venue really shows, you know, like, we're very much in the climate that we're talking about. I think there's a lot of value that I'm not even sure I expected from just like feeling uncomfortable while you're having these conversations and constantly needing air conditioning. It brings everything to a much more kind of real, in a much more real sense to how important it is to figure all of this out. And I mean, people like, I've talked to people who have gotten sick from just like how from the heat. You know, it's, it's a serious issue. Of course, it's the Amazon, it's hot, it's expected. We're not necessarily trying to change that. But I think, I think it is something we didn't experience in Baku. It felt very contained and hard to really visualize. And here it's very visceral.

[Kate Warren]

Aina, how about you?

[Ayanat Mercy]

Yeah, it's been. I mean, of course one major positive is that we do see a lot of indigenous people around and there's a huge amount of participation. I mean, I can only compare it to Baku last year, but there are so many more indigenous groups. There are many more events. Seems like most panels include indigenous people in some way. And that's really by virtue of the fact that we're here in this space, which is a huge positive. But of course there are other people who are saying, you know, we're questioning the idea that COP30 is really carbon neutral. You know, we can hear the hum of diesel generators kind of all the time. And we know there's been the road construction and things like that. So it'll be a question of whether there's anything long term positive that the city can get from it. And I know, for example, Global Methane Hub launched an organic waste recycling program for the city and that was like in anticipation of cop. And that will be a lasting legacy after cop. So it'll be really interesting to follow what kind of organizations do that and make sure that they have a lasting, positive footprint on the city.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah, I've heard people say that it's actually really highlighting the challenges of wanting to develop a place and being able to try to do the tandem of economic growth and development and infrastructure along with sustainability. And it's been a kind of a testing ground of both the challenges and opportunities of that. I want to talk to you both about what you're covering and what you're reporting on. But I also want to acknowledge that for a lot of our global development audience, the climate world is a little bit outside of their sphere. This is my fifth cop, and historically we weren't always at cop, covering it as part of global development, but now we know that climate really impacts everything about development. It intersects all of the issues that we cover. And so I want to play a little game of what's that acronym? Because that's something I've noticed is, you know, every sector has their jargon, right, their speed speak, and it can be a little, you know, kind of exclusionary, I guess. But for our global development audience, that's not here, that maybe is not in the weeds of climate. I want to break down some of those as to help frame up our conversation. So. So Jesse, I'm going to put you on the spot here on some of these. I'll just pick a few that are pretty common right now. But the NDCs.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Yeah, so this is a fun one because in the health world we have NCDs and a lot of people keep mixing that up. NDCs are nationally determined contributions. So they are. Every five years, all the countries that have signed onto the Paris Agreement have to show how their national, national ambitions are matching to the Paris Agreement. And then the idea was that all of these would be submitted in February, giving the Brazilian presidency time to work on a report and show that, okay, if you put all these ambitions together, we will stay or we won't stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is the goal of the Paris Agreement this year. Obviously that did not happen. We still don't have all of our NDCs. Many of them came in in September. So the report that, that that resulted is, you know, not full. And this is a big problem for the conversations happening here at cop. You know, we don't really know what the ambitions of these countries are. So. Yes, that's NDC's for you.

[Kate Warren]

All right, NDC. So we got that one down. And sometimes people talk about NCDs and NDCs and it really gets to be a tongue twister. So another one, NC Q.

[Ayanat Mercy]

Okay.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

NCQG was the big term, the big acronym last year in Baku. That's the new collective quantified goal. And that's the finance goal that was meant to update the previous one at Copenhagen back in 2009. And that finance goal is basically $300 billion annually for developed countries to give to developing countries.

[Kate Warren]

And then a new one this year that I know you've written about a lot is tff.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Yes. No, no one likes this. No one likes any of them. So the TFF is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. And this is a plan that really came from the Brazilian cop. The Brazilian government pushed this ahead and the idea is to have kind of a picture payment process for tropical forest countries to get paid for the forests that they preserve or conserve. And it's an investment fund. So it's been a little bit contentious because it's not just public money coming develop to developing. It's. It's meant to be invested in high yield bonds from emerging markets and that the, the develop. The countries that have invested are supposed to get the first payouts and then the tropical forest countries kind of get what's left. And it's supposed to be about $4 per hectare. And so far so good. It got about 5 billion in the first actually last week hearing the leaders summit. So we'll see how that goes.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah, and I think you kind of had an exclusive on some of the MDBs that are looking to invest in this. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that story.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Just a minute. Yeah. So this is exciting and not something I think that the TFF brain trust had expected necessarily. They were really looking at sovereign nations to put in the first up to 25 billion. But we learned yesterday that EBRD and AIIB as well as actually EIB, more acronyms, sorry. A bunch of different multilateral development banks are interested in giving money as well. What we don't know is one, how much they would give, which is obviously a big gap in our understanding, and two, whether that money would be counted as kind of a riskier investment where, you know, when returns come back they might not get those first returns or if they're joining the less risky investments which are mainly coming from private companies. And that that's expected to be a little bit easier to get because it's not as risky. So we're still following that. But it is exciting to see these, these multilateral development banks finding this to be an interesting model.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah, before I came to Belem, I was in Sao Paulo where there were a lot of other gatherings bringing investors and asset managers. And I think all of them are really excited about the opportunities they see to invest in nature. And this is something that has grown over the years. And I think there's been a sense that it's either or getting returns or having impact. And there's been some really great examples. And I think there's a lot of hope that this is going to become a model for other parts of the world.

[Ayanat Mercy]

Just going to jump in. I had a really interesting conversation with Leslie Mazdorp of BII and he was telling me he's making the analogy of the green Bond Market, which 20 years ago was really started by the folks who could take risks. You know, we're talking about multilateral development banks or DFIs and those are the types of people who could really start out the green Bond Market. But 20 years later it's a multi trillion dollar market, you know. And so I asked him, you know, is this something. So do you think that forests and nature based solutions could be a trillion dollar market? And he's like, sure. I mean the hope. And so it's a really interesting analogy, right. Like we've gotten so far with green bond markets in 20 years. So this is really pioneering in terms of when we think about what it could mean for the next 20 years.

[Kate Warren]

And you know, there's always this debate between mitigation, adaptation and feeling a little bit of zero sum game of where we prioritize resources. And you know, a lot of conversation I've been hearing is a lot of excitement around investments in nature and also agriculture. Say regenerative agriculture is a way that you can actually address both mitigation and adaptation and get returns. And just like real win, win, wins. And Aina, you know, you cover a lot of the food and ag beat. What are the big, you know, agenda items for that community here? Food has been more efficiently on the agenda in recent years and has really grown to not just being a side issue, but being core to a lot of these discussions. You know, what are hearing you hearing this week?

[Ayanat Mercy]

Yeah, absolutely. And it's definitely core in the discussions, especially, especially here in Brazil, which is, you know, an agricultural powerhouse that feeds so much of the world. And it's also really interesting because we're coming at it from not just from the agriculture, agricultural production strength of Brazil, but also it's made huge progress in reducing hunger in recent years. Actually in the past two years it lifted 40 million people out of hunger, which is just such a staggering stat. Lula has really made it a priority this term and from his first term in 2003 as well. You know, his promise to people was that hunger would be reduced or eliminated. And you know, this time he's really delivering. And so they have a lot of credibility on the world stage in terms of like, how do we fight hunger and how do we do it in kind of in a sustainable way. So I think those conversations are happening both, you know, it's like, how do we reduce hunger? And also how do we reduce emissions? And you know, even before COP officially started last Friday, we had the Belen Declaration on, on reducing hunger and Poverty and Human Centered Design. I think that is memory. I hope most of those words are correct. But a blend declaration on hunger and that, I mean it's a non binding agreement, right? But it was basically saying that countries should invest in smallholder farmers. And it was important to have that on the UNFCCC stage because we haven't really had a declaration like that before. And I think it just indicates how seriously Brazil takes hunger and food issues. So that's a really interesting thing to watch and how it's implemented. We're going to have more conversations around it. We don't know much about the implementation, although there are some things, there are some like measures suggesting, like how it could be implemented. We don't know exactly what's going to happen yet. So that's something that we're watching really closely.

[Richard Kamba]

This portion of this week in Global Development is brought to you by pivotal, which works to accelerate the pace of social progress for women and young people in the US and around the world. We're proud to spotlight pivotal's Action for Women's Health initiative that awards innovators who are shaping the future of women's health from North America to Southern Asia. And I'm thrilled to be joined by Sarah Joy Malaba, co Chief Executive Officer of teco, an Action for Women's Health awardee. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us.

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

Happy to be here.

[Richard Kamba]

So I'd love to start by hearing a little bit more about what inspired your work and what sparked specific challenges you set out to address.

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

So what inspires me to come to this work, first and foremost is my own personal loss. At the age of 24, I lost both my parents to HIV and at the time the world around me completely collapsed. I was grieving and trying to raise my three siblings who are younger than me. And that's when another woman showed up for me. Her name is Professor Ruth Onyango. I was working with her as an intern and what she did for me changed the trajectory of my life. She turned me into a paid worker which afforded me a salary and so I was able to raise my siblings. I think that my life would have turned out differently if it were not her showing up for me at that point in time. And so I spend my days as co CEO of Tico, leading our program strategy, making sure that I show up for girls in sub Saharan Africa who face the triple threat of unintended pregnancy, HIV and sexual violence. TICO has been doing this for the last 10 years, but most recently added on the piece around addressing sexual and gender based violence because data shows that it's the biggest driver of unintended pregnancy and new HIV infections among adolescent girls.

[Richard Kamba]

I also know that technology is an important piece of your model and I wonder if you can tell us what you've learned about the role of technology in building trust and reaching young women, especially women who might otherwise be left out of traditional health systems.

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

That's a great question. And indeed, at Tico, the type of adolescent girl and young woman that we reach is termed as the most vulnerable. They would be likely the most unaware about their sexual reproductive health needs, have the least access and have no way to afford the critical care that they need. And this is a girl usually living in an informal settlement in an urban and peri. Urban area of Africa where we work. So what technology does for her and how we think about technology is that it creates an ecosystem of service delivery that is closest to the girl. This girl that we work with and serve and impact doesn't need a phone to be a Tico member and doesn't need Internet or SMS access. What she can get is a card like this. It's a Tico card that's a QR coded card that's unique to her. However, the ecosystem that we work with that includes community mobilizers, healthcare providers and clinics and retailers need applications that are specific to them so that we can, for example, tell where was this girl found when she was mobilized and given information. Then she gets enrolled onto Tico, which service did she get? Because the provider will log on that service. Which redemption did she take under Twitch Shop? Because the retailers will have a retailer app. But what does that the technology does for us concurrently is that it records at real time what is going on with this girl and we are able to make her visible, otherwise she would have been invisible. We can tell where the health system breaks down for her if she comes for one or multiple services. And so we are able to leverage on technology as a means of finding her, following her and supporting her user journey so that she does not only start on care, but can continue on it.

[Richard Kamba]

I know your model relies on collaboration. You're linking users, health providers and private sector partners through this single digital ecosystem. I wonder if you can share what makes these partnerships work and what lessons might other organizations take from your experience?

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

There are fundamental aspects of what makes this model work. And I think the most important one is that we have a shared value around making the system stop failing adolescent girls. By that I mean that in this model, the partnership is committed to increasing awareness among adolescent girls around sexual reproductive health and their rights. It is committed to expanding access. And that's why we can leverage on both public and private facilities that exist in closest to the girl. And we believe in removing costs for this girl because as I said, this is a girl who is living in, you know, most disadvantaged circumstances in an informal settlement in an urban area. So it is important that the model accepts and enables her to access service at no cost to her. So that's that's the initial shared value. The second one is that our investments go directly into these communities and the mobilizers that work with us, the clinics that work with us are on a paper performance in a way that makes them to be able to deliver quality assured, youth friendly, stigma free services to the adolescents that we serve. So collectively we're able to strengthen that system that is closest to that girl and have a grassroots driven approach. The last point really is around the fact that at Teco, we don't duplicate, we leverage, we interconnect and make that system work.

[Richard Kamba]

So this award comes at a really critical time for women's health and I'd love to hear a bit more from you about what this award will allow you to do and how it will help you to better serve the communities you work with.

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

We're early on in our journey of integrating gender based violence prevention and management into the TICO model. We have a lot of experience delivering contraceptive services and HIV services to adolescent girls. This investment is going to help us to refine the integration of sexual violence prevention and management into our work. What that means is that we will be able to take a more girl centric, survivor sensitive approach to this work. Secondly, because of how our model strengthens an existing ecosystem, we're going to be able to strengthen the community response to adolescent girls, making sure that we heighten understanding that sexual gender based violence needs to become completely unacceptable and making sure that communities themselves organize to have a response. Lastly, this investment is going to help us to strengthen the health system that includes both the public sector and the private sector to be able to provide comprehensive support to girls who come in. And so we are looking at impacting 3.5 million girls at minimum, with an integrated model that ensures they are screened for sexual violence, they have awareness around it, and that the communities around them build a support structure to ensure that in the event that they survive violence, they will have the most critical care so they can be resilient and really achieve their life's goals.

[Richard Kamba]

So I'm excited to follow what you do with this award and would love to just hear you expand on what's next for your organization and, and what you hope that others take away from your work. I would say whether they're tackling these challenges or other challenges in global health.

[Sarah Joy Malaba]

And development, we are working really hard in the next five years to figure out what an integrated approach to sexual reproductive health looks like. We are working to ensure that we can demonstrate a model that works for girls, a model that indicates that sometimes girls show up in the health facility to ask for a contraceptive service. But what really they need is somebody to address a rape that happened yesterday night with both a biomedical response but a critical legal support and also protection support that girls need. The other thing that I'm hoping that we can all learn is that we need to invest in the lives of girls for the long term. We will leverage on this resource to ensure that governments can also co finance on this response as well as other private philanthropy and private sector within the countries where we live. And so this is going to be a catalyzing investment for us that can indicate how long term investment in an integrated model needs to look like for the adolescent girls and young women in Sub Saharan Africa.

[Richard Kamba]

Thank you for all you're doing to as you put it, figure out a model that works for girls. Looking forward to following your work and thank you so much Sarah for your time.

[Kate Warren]

So something that I think is particularly unique about COP compared to some of these other, you know, UN led convenings that we often are covering is just how long it is. It's two weeks. So it's, you know, some people come for part of it. You both are here for, for the long haul, to the bitter end as we say. But Jesse, maybe you can kind of talk through, you know, what is happening over those two weeks, what is happening now and what are you expecting to happen next week?

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Yeah, it's a real test of stamina and I'm grateful to have had a year doing this so far so that I could be more prepared this year to pace myself. Basically. There's kind of two, two parts of this that, that we're following. So you have the negotiations on the one side and then everything else on the other side on the negotiation side. We're still kind of waiting on an agenda. They have agreed to move forward on the, on the topics that they agree on. But there's four areas where they're still doing consultations and that means that they haven't decided how to add them to the agenda or if they're going to add them to the agenda ideally. And this is, it's planned to end by Saturday, which means next week what we'll see is full on, you know, agenda items and things will start to heat up. Everyone will feel, you know, time ticking. Right now I think part of having this be two weeks means there's less urgency in the first part and then by the end everyone's like, oh my God, there's no days.

[Kate Warren]

We're also ready to get home.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

So it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it always, it always goes into the weekend. You know, you kind of just plan to be here through the weekend. But on that other side, which is the everything else side, you just have constant events both in the blue zone and the green zone. And, and that's really varied. I mean, we've had these sort of thematic days throughout the first week, but the themes are like, there's like eight themes per day, so it's hard to follow. I think we're going to see a lot of like, turnover. So you have a bunch of people here this week. They do those, those events and then the second group comes in next week. But I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of variance on, on the events. It's just going to be a kind of a continuation of that.

[Kate Warren]

And when we think about the development community that's showing up here, and you know, the other thing that strikes me about COP is that it really brings up a wide swath of people from all kinds of backgrounds and types of organizations. And so you're often in a room with people you might normally not normally talk to, particularly from the development community side. But I know for some of the people you've been talking to that particularly I'm from the development side, what do you think they're looking to see happen this week? They want to have come out at these negotiations and then the final agreement.

[Ayanat Mercy]

Yeah, I mean, I think, for example, for food, you know, I. Speaking to people in the food community who are kind of simultaneously tracking the official negotiations and the unofficial ones.

[Kate Warren]

Right.

[Ayanat Mercy]

So the unofficial ones are something like the Belen decoration. So people are wondering, you know, how will we measure progress towards supporting for stockholder farmers? How will we measure progress on these ideas that were laid out? But there's also actually real hard negotiations on food. And that's the Sharm El Sheikh work plan or a transition. I'm sorry for the, you know, some.

[Kate Warren]

Combination of words these, these titles they come up with.

[Ayanat Mercy]

It's really call it Sharm El Sheikh. And so that. But that is much more slow going. And so the progress on some of the official UN negotiations I think is a little frustratingly slow for some folks. So they put a lot of faith in the parallel conversations that are happening. So I think that's kind of one thing for the development community to have the eye on the ball in terms of the action negotiations. But sometimes that doesn't actually matter as much as the things that are happening.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Outside just to add to that, I spoke with some public development banks who feel like this year is really their year because it's all about implementation. And they're like, okay, we get the money and we decide, you know, the best use of it. And so I think because of that, we have this implementation idea. There's something for everyone in a way where different, different actors, especially in the development community, because, you know, this is so much about developing countries and climate impacts in developing countries. They're saying, you know, we can latch onto the health action plan or we can latch onto the povert, or we can latch onto adaptation. And it's giving a lot of people in the development community a way to kind of join this push.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah. And also notably absent from these convenings is the U.S. government. Right. Do you have Governor Gavin Newsom from California who's been making the rounds, which I find interesting, and even cutting bilateral deals between California and other countries as being, you know, the fourth largest economy. And so I'm curious here kind of what the impact is of not having US Administration voices as part of these conversations. But then also something else that has really struck me is how important it is to center mayors and governors and how so much of the action when you are hearing about is happening at that local level. And so many of the conversations are centered around that's where the implementation happens. Right. It just happens more locally and then connecting how these large multilateral organizations can help facilitate that. But, Jesse, you know, what are your thoughts on, are people missing the Americans or not?

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

No one's missing the Americans. I think you'll hear this again and again. You know, if they're, if they're not going to be a part of the process, it's better that they're not here trying to derail it. But, you know, I don't think a governor has ever been so popular. I mean, it's, you can see that there's this real thirst for US Leadership here just in how popular Gavin Newsom was yesterday. And, and there were other, there were mayor, other mayors and other governors here as well, who got a lot of attention. And so, you know, while it's nice that they're not here to derail the conversation, they are a massive, it's a massive loss to not have them here. Like, no climate movement can be as full without them because it's such a huge economy and the second biggest emitter. So, you know, we can't forget that part.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

As, as far as sort of the, I don't know if you want me to talk on that kind of power of the mayors and the cities and stuff.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah. Well, Ayana, why don't you jump in there and then let's go into them. Yeah.

[Ayanat Mercy]

I just think one thing that was also interesting is that, you know, Gavin Newsom was here and he was like, you know, very popular, as you were mentioning, and he did sign a lot of agreements. I think in the past, what you see with Californian bilateral agreements has been a lot of, you know, developed countries. So he was speaking at the German Pavilion, for example, and they have a lot of partnerships between California and Germany and German states and such. But they also are having, I thought it was interesting, they also signed some agreements with developing countries. So they actually signed an MoU with Kenya, for example, to boost trade and support green transport. So I think that's something really to watch too.

[Kate Warren]

Right.

[Ayanat Mercy]

Especially for our communities. What, you know, what one of the largest economies in the world. So what can that mean and how can that change development in the global South? I think that's a really interesting trend.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah, I think that, you know, often these cops are about building global consensus and seeing it move to. You don't need to get everyone to agree on something. So it is more this kind of bilateral or smaller coalitions coming together and being able to see a lot of momentum when you do it that way. And a lot of that is working with mayors and governors. And so what are you seeing and hearing around that?

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Yeah, just before COP and Belem started, there was a massive gathering of mayors and local leaders, I think in Sao Paulo. It was in Rio. There are a few different events and that seemed to be really successful. They've been able to really push their agenda to say cities want a seat at the table and we want direct climate finance to come to us, which is a pretty big deal. And I, I think, you know, seeing Gavin Newsom here say we still care about climate just underlines that, you know, maybe we do need to be bringing these sub national leaders into the conversation. And so it's, it's exciting to see because they also have more capacity to implement these changes on the ground because they're closer to the ground. And so we'll see how that moves forward. It was in the bellum to the Bakute Belem roadmap. We'll see what comes out of the final text.

[Ayanat Mercy]

Just to jump in, I was at a panel earlier today about Nathane and it was a bunch of city, city representatives. So someone from Florianopolis and Brazil, someone from Accra, someone from Zanzibar, so there were all these city leaders talking about and exchanging ideas on how they can effectively recycle organic waste. And obviously that is a huge problem in terms of actually like waste recycling and waste management, but also from an emission standpoint. And I thought it was really interesting that there were people who are really these practitioners, practitioners, people who get their hands dirty exchanging ideas about how they can more effectively manage organic waste and how they can also access climate, climate finance to do that because it is reducing methane emissions. So it is a, it's. You see a lot of city practitioners here and that's been a really interesting thing to see.

[Kate Warren]

So I want to just talk a little bit about. The stories that you're working on are coming out. I know you've been doing some stuff around the, like the fund, both Loss and Damage fund, which that's big important. And I think you have a story coming out on that. Can you talk a bit about where that stands right now?

[Ayanat Mercy]

Yeah. So this is something that it's been really interesting because when I talk to people in the development community, they're like, wow, this is happening really quickly. The fund was just established a couple of years ago and you know, it already has an executive director, it has some money. It's like, how's it call for proposals? And then you talk to civil society, they're like, oh my God, you know, this is the slowest thing in the world. Where's the money? So I guess the truth is somewhere in between. So they appointed an executive director last year and this year they have the first day of cop. They announced a call for proposals. So this is a fund for responding to lawsuit damage. And this, as you can imagine, loss and damage is a huge issue. The amount of money that countries need in order to address loss and damage, which is not just from extreme weather events, it's also from slow onset issues like sea level rise is a huge amount of money. And so this has been set up a couple of years ago and it's right now capitalized only by voluntary contributions, which obviously means it's not very much. It's only around $800 million right now, 788, which is kind of a drop in the bucket. But what the fund decided to do and what the call for proposals was this week was that they were opening up a window for $250 million for developing countries vulnerable to climate change to apply to. And the proposals, you can start submitting proposals from December. They'll review them over the next six months. And so this is kind of like A trial run. You know, this is the first time they'll be dispersing money, which they said they would do by the end of next year. So it's really something to watch how this develops. And I think a lot of countries who have contributed to the fund, you know, France and German, you were the largest contributors, are probably watching it to see how successful it is, to see if they'll top up and what the future of it is. And I also got a little bit of insight as to how the fund will actually work because, you know, it's, it's actually a, it's a fund that is, it's a financial, it's a fifth within World Bank. So like, like the adaptation fund or like gafsb. So it'll actually, the secretary is going to actually sit in D.C. within the world bank and it's the board. A lot of people have been saying it's Philippines based, Philippines based, but it's actually not. It's the board that's Philippines based and the secretary will be in D.C. and it's going to be a really small team. They're trying to keep it to around 25 or 26 people total. So it's going to be a really small, lean team. They're on nine people so far and they have the funds to start hiring next year. So I think it was just, it's a very exciting time for the fund. So I think over the next six months to a year we're going to see a lot of updates as to how things are going.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah, that'll be interesting to watch. Jesse, what else are you looking out for?

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

Yeah, so I am working on a story on critical minerals in addition to the TF theft story that I talked about earlier that the just transition is a huge part of the conversation here at COP30. And a lot of countries want critical minerals. Transition minerals is I think the term to use now. They want to see it as a key aspect of the dress transition and I'm focused on how Brazil is handing it handling this nationally because they have quite a lot of lithium deposits as well as some other transition minerals. You know, when you have a mine in a, near a small town, it's really harmful to that small town. At the same time we need lithium for, for the renewable energy transition. But there's a lot of questions about how to do this better. It's, it tends to be that the raw minerals are exported to the Global north and Global north countries benefit more from that rather than, you know, having the processing capacity within the countries that have the raw minerals. At the same time, you have a lot of development banks that the Brazilian Development bank is actually supporting a lot of the mining exploration here in Brazil. So, you know, it's. It's one of those catch 22, those really interesting topics where you're not really sure which side to fall on all the time. You need the minerals but they're. You can't have the mines next to communities. So it's been a fascinating topic and to. To research. And that story will come out soon. It's not out quite yet.

[Kate Warren]

Yeah. Is that a story that we used to think of as a development story, but it really increasingly is. Yeah.

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

I mean we. These minerals are essential for the energy transition which is key to development. Now, you know, if we cannot, if a, if a nation can't develop with fossil fuels, what, what can it develop with? And these are the things that are going to power the energy sector in countries and developing countries tend to be the ones that have more of the.

[Kate Warren]

Deposits of them and to make sure that they're actually capturing the value of that as many are looking for more resources to be able to fund their own development. And the wake of USAID and other funding cuts, a real opportunity. Well, thank you both. Do you have anything fun plan while you're here in Belem to try to see a little bit of the culture?

[Jesse Chase Lubitz]

I hear there's a theater downtown that was built back in like the 1800s or something by the Europeans when they were here during the rubber rush. So I really want to go see the architecture there. But I. Who knows with what time? I don't know.

[Kate Warren]

Yes.

[Ayanat Mercy]

So I'm really hoping to see cool birds. So I'm just going to look out the window over the weekend and hope for the best.

[Kate Warren]

Well, I know there's a lot of music and festivals happening too, so hopefully we can break away to see a little bit of that. But you all are writing a daily reporter's notebook, so make sure you are checking that out. If you want to cover all of our cuff, follow Olive Ayanat and Jesse's coverage as well as some special edition newsletters that we're putting out. So you'll be reporting on all the conversations, all the things that's happening, the negotiations, as we say, to the bitter end. So make sure you drink lots of water and pace yourselves. But thank you and thank you for tuning in to this week in global Development.