Debriefling COP30 with J. Drake Hamilton

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Belem, Brazil from November 10-21, 2025. J. Drake Hamilton, managing director, science policy at Fresh Energy, attended the conference virtually and recently sat down with Isak Kvam for a webinar to debrief outcomes and take questions. Tune in and check out J.'s blog series with frequent updates throughout COP.

Fresh Energy’s mission is to shape and drive bold policy solutions to achieve equitable carbon-neutral economies. Together we are working toward a vision of a just, prosperous, and resilient future powered by a shared commitment to a carbon-neutral economy. Learn about Fresh Energy's work and our bold "Vision 2030: Fresh Energy's Strategic Framework" at our website fresh-energy.org.


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Transcript

00:00:11 Jo Olson 

Hello, and welcome to Decarbonize, the Clean Energy Podcast from Fresh Energy. 

00:00:17 Jo Olson 

Fresh Energy is a Minnesota nonprofit working to speed our state's transition to a clean energy economy. 

00:00:25 Jo Olson 

My name is Jo Olson, and I'm the Chief Communications Officer here at Fresh Energy. 

00:00:29 Jo Olson 

And today, I'm in your podcast feed to share with you a recording of J. Drake Hamilton's conversation with Isak Quam about COP 30, which recently wrapped up in Brazil. 

00:00:40 Jo Olson 

On this webinar, J. debriefs COP outcomes with Isak and answers webinar participant questions throughout. 

00:00:47 Jo Olson 

So thank you for tuning in, and let's get started. 

00:00:51 Isak Kvam 

Welcome, everybody, to Fresh Energy's webinar, COP30 and Fresh Energy, Discussions with J. Drake Hamilton. 

00:00:58 Isak Kvam 

This is J.'s 10th time covering the UN's annual Global Climate Conference, and today's webinar is going to debrief what happened and what it means for our fight against climate change. 

00:01:09 Isak Kvam 

This year, J., like many others, attended virtually, and she's going to discuss what happened, and then we can pepper her with questions. 

00:01:18 Isak Kvam 

at the end while she's still fresh off the conference. 

00:01:21 Isak Kvam 

To give you a bit of an overview of the webinar today, J. will be speaking for the first 45 minutes about her COP30 experience, and then we'll hold 15 minutes at the end of the webinar for J. to answer your questions. 

00:01:36 Isak Kvam 

I do want to do a bit of housekeeping first before we start. 

00:01:39 Isak Kvam 

First, we are recording today's webinar. 

00:01:42 Isak Kvam 

And a link to the recording will automatically be sent to everyone's e-mail who registered. 

00:01:46 Isak Kvam 

You'll be getting that e-mail from me either later today or tomorrow. 

00:01:50 Isak Kvam 

And we will also be publishing the audio from today's webinar to our podcast, Decarbonize the Clean Energy Podcast. 

00:01:57 Isak Kvam 

If you aren't already a subscriber, I would encourage you to open up your favorite podcasting app and search for us and go ahead and subscribe. 

00:02:05 Isak Kvam 

My last episode was with Eric about building codes and climate change. 

00:02:10 Isak Kvam 

It was a really great episode, so I would encourage you all to subscribe. 

00:02:14 Isak Kvam 

Second, a few of you have submitted questions prior to today's webinar, and thank you for doing that. 

00:02:19 Isak Kvam 

But as I said before, we'll hold the last 15 minutes for your questions, but you can use the handy dandy Q&A button on your Zoom screen at any part of today's webinar to ask a question. 

00:02:31 Isak Kvam 

It should be just a little button at the bottom of your screen. 

00:02:34 Isak Kvam 

And I think you should be able to see other folks' questions as well. 

00:02:37 Isak Kvam 

So you can upvote ones that you would like J. to answer. 

00:02:40 Isak Kvam 

Please try to use the Q&A instead of the chat. 

00:02:43 Isak Kvam 

It just helps us keep those things a little separate, makes it easier for us when we get to that portion. 

00:02:49 Isak Kvam 

And third, for those of you who just joined us, feel free to leave your name and where you're joining us from in the chat. 

00:02:56 Isak Kvam 

For those of you who are new to Fresh Energy, I'm going to give you a quick scoop on who we are and what we do. 

00:03:03 Isak Kvam 

Fresh Energy has been working on clean energy and climate policy issues here in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest for over 30 years. 

00:03:10 Isak Kvam 

We are changing the world through bold policy solutions that move us to a just, carbon-free future. 

00:03:16 Isak Kvam 

And we're helping everyone who lives here end their dependence on fossil fuels, electrify their lives, and build a healthy, clean energy economy where all can thrive. 

00:03:27 Isak Kvam 

Okay, let's move on to introductions. 

00:03:29 Isak Kvam 

So you have been hearing from me. 

00:03:31 Isak Kvam 

My name is Isak Kvam. 

00:03:32 Isak Kvam 

I am the senior writer and editor on the communications team. 

00:03:36 Isak Kvam 

And I am joined by J., who is the star of our show today. 

00:03:41 Isak Kvam 

J. is the Managing Director of Science Policy here at Fresh Energy. 

00:03:45 Isak Kvam 

J., do you want to give a small introduction to the folks on the webinar? 

00:03:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

Hello, everyone. 

00:03:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

I know a lot of you on the call and I hope to meet all of you. 

00:03:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

I'm J.. 

00:03:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

I go by J.. 

00:03:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

I'm one of the seasoned employees of Fresh Energy. 

00:04:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

I've now been here 29 years. 

00:04:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

So I know a lot about energy and climate policy. 

00:04:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

Now I specialize on decarbonizing everything. 

00:04:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

And one of the small things I do is I go to international conferences. 

00:04:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

But I wanted to let you know that I've also been appointed by Governor Walz 

00:04:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

to serve on his advisory council on climate change. 

00:04:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

There are 15 of us from around Minnesota. 

00:04:32 J. Drake Hamilton 

I'm one of the 15. 

00:04:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

We serve four-year terms, and the governor has been clear with us. 

00:04:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

He wants us to tell him, to recommend to him, what are the next best steps he could take on climate action. 

00:04:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

And what he's interested in is things that are going to benefit 

00:04:54 J. Drake Hamilton 

everyone in the state and that are going to reduce big slugs of carbon emissions first. 

00:05:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

So I'm going to be talking today about COP30. 

00:05:08 J. Drake Hamilton 

And if we could go to the first slide, I think, Isak, thanks. 

00:05:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

All right. 

00:05:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

So COP30 was held in Belem, Brazil. 

00:05:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

And I had Isak pull up this map. 

00:05:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

because many people don't know where Belem is. 

00:05:27 J. Drake Hamilton 

Belem is at the mouth, or one of the mouths of the Amazon River, where it enters the Atlantic Ocean. 

00:05:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

And it is very much in Amazonia. 

00:05:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

And it was selected from all cities that President Lula, who is the leader of Brazil, could choose, because he wanted people to see 

00:05:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

one of the not superstars yet of Brazil, to see where people just got air conditioning recently. 

00:06:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

So that's why I picked Belem. 

00:06:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

But I want to point out to you, Brazil is such a huge country that I was not too startled, but a little settled when I found, when I was joining virtually, that many of the world leaders 

00:06:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

joined COP 30, which is held in Belem, and they never set foot in Belem because Belem started on November 10th and ran through the 22nd of November. 

00:06:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the World Leaders Summit was actually held before this on November 6th and 7th, and it was held in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. 

00:06:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

And those are, respectively, 

00:06:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

1,785 miles from Belem and 1,977 miles from Belem. 

00:06:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

That is like equivalent to New York and L.A. 

00:07:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

So it's a very big country. 

00:07:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

I was there for the 30th Conference of Parties, or the COP 30, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is always called UNFCCC. 

00:07:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the UNFCCC is a treaty that was first written in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro. 

00:07:28 J. Drake Hamilton 

So it was like coming back to the place where the Earth Summit was held. 

00:07:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

And global attention was turned to the annual climate conference as people from almost 200 nations assessed climate progress and they were all being very real 

00:07:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

about the gaping action or lack of action that remains and the actions that must now be taken very swiftly. 

00:08:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

People were all interested in implementing solutions and talking about solutions that were working in their countries and people were ready to negotiate new commitments. 

00:08:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

So Fresh Energy always looks for 

00:08:18 J. Drake Hamilton 

climate science to greatly influence climate diplomacy. 

00:08:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

And we know that perhaps as many as 3.45 billion people worldwide are highly vulnerable to the climate crisis. 

00:08:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the time to act is now, and it is to be decisive. 

00:08:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

Now, I did not plan to be at side events, as I am much more interested 

00:08:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

in watching diplomacy at work, in watching how parties who are the leaders of countries, the negotiators, present their solutions to the rest of the COP and pose questions to the UN. 

00:09:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

So I'm particularly interested in attending plenary sessions with 1,000 to 2,000 people in the room. 

00:09:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

And because I had a ticket to the virtual platform, 

00:09:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

I was on at the same time with like 10,000 people from around the world. 

00:09:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

We could hear everything perfectly. 

00:09:26 J. Drake Hamilton 

So it was really an easy way to attend. 

00:09:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

So I want to tell you a little bit about the importance of this COP and what it can do. 

00:09:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

First of all, it was asking, is the Paris Agreement that was struck 

00:09:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

in 2015, is it working? 

00:09:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the answer is overwhelmingly yes. 

00:09:53 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the agreement is putting forward more aggressive, nationally determined contributions. 

00:10:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

And finance is vastly ramping up. 

00:10:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

However, the world is not decarbonizing fast enough. 

00:10:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

Before the Paris Agreement, the 

00:10:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

GLOBE was aimed at reaching another four degrees Celsius rise by 2100. 

00:10:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

But now, if all businesses did all of what is promised, that warming would be cut to only 1.8 degrees Celsius, which is still too much. 

00:10:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

So in COP 21 in Paris, 

00:10:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

Countries promised to curtail emissions to ensure that the rise in global temperature stays well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to keep that temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

00:10:59 J. Drake Hamilton 

From the start, the UNFCC process was fraught with challenges. 

00:11:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

One roadblock is procedural. 

00:11:08 J. Drake Hamilton 

in that every decision at a COB has to be made by consensus rather than by supermajority. 

00:11:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

Each country's vote carries the same weight, giving unprecedented power to vulnerable and poor countries, which is the intention. 

00:11:27 J. Drake Hamilton 

And while this could be seen as usually beneficial, it also gave any one country-- they're called parties-- 

00:11:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

the ability to block an agreement the rest of the world favored. 

00:11:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

That is, it creates an escape clause that countries with fossil fuel and other special interests could use to limit ambition and slow progress. 

00:11:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

But what I noticed time and time again is it was very rare for a country to block that. 

00:12:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

So in Paris, 10 years ago, a remarkable thing happened 

00:12:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

in a temporary conference hall at a former airport on the outskirts of Paris. 

00:12:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

After years of bitter negotiations, the leaders of nearly every country agreed to tries to slow down global warming in an effort to head off its most devastating effects. 

00:12:27 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the core idea was that countries would set their own targets, 

00:12:32 J. Drake Hamilton 

to reduce their climate pollution in ways that make sense to them. 

00:12:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

Rich industrialized countries were expected to go fastest and to help lower income countries pay for the changes they needed to cope with climate hazards that are always already happening. 

00:12:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

So every country remains committed to the Paris Agreement except one, and that's the United States. 

00:12:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

We can talk about that later if you'd like to. 

00:13:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

Like most things in life worth having, COP is work. 

00:13:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

Yes, it can be disappointing, dysfunctional, even maddening at times. 

00:13:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

I've seen all of these things. 

00:13:12 J. Drake Hamilton 

In 2025, ten years after the promising outcome of COP 21 in Paris, the most consequential COP so far, the world has now trimmed expecting warming trajectory from four degrees 

00:13:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

down to 2.6 degrees warming by 2100. 

00:13:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

It is clearly not enough, but at some level, COP is working. 

00:13:40 J. Drake Hamilton 

We just need to make it work faster. 

00:13:43 J. Drake Hamilton 

It's not whether Paris is or isn't a failure. 

00:13:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

It's whether countries are failing their commitments to the Paris Agreement. 

00:13:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

So as part of COP 21, countries had all agreed to step up their climate action 

00:13:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

in a five-year review cycle. 

00:14:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

So for example, when world leaders, and I was one of those, came together in Glasgow, it was the first, and this was in 2021, it was the first step of a crucial test whether the Paris Agreement would be anything more than empty rhetoric. 

00:14:21 J. Drake Hamilton 

So let's look at the decision texts. 

00:14:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

That is the document that is 

00:14:28 J. Drake Hamilton 

Single spaced. 

00:14:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

Sometimes they're as short as 15 pages. 

00:14:33 J. Drake Hamilton 

Sometimes they're as long as 40 pages. 

00:14:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

But remember, every line has to be approved by every one of nearly 200 countries by consensus. 

00:14:45 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the decision text that came out of the 2021 meeting in Glasgow was the first time Cole was mentioned in the text. 

00:14:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

as nations agreed to phase down unabated coal power. 

00:15:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

That was historic. 

00:15:04 J. Drake Hamilton 

At COP23, countries responding to the global stocktake report by making their first collective promise and toward leaving fossil fuels in the past, a year-long effort by the United Arab Emirates, the president of that, which was held at COP28 in Dubai, 

00:15:27 J. Drake Hamilton 

resulted in all delegates agreeing to transition the world away from fossil fuels, another big historic outcome. 

00:15:38 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the Global Stocktake Report that they also finalized in Dubai was unequivocal on what we must do to create a safe future. 

00:15:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

And now we need to figure out how to use COPs to make sure this actually happens. 

00:15:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

So today, COP remains essential. 

00:15:59 J. Drake Hamilton 

It is the only forum in the world that gives equal voice to countries, rich and poor, to negotiate responsibilities on addressing climate change. 

00:16:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

We know that now the direction of emissions is right. 

00:16:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

It is going down, but the speed isn't right yet. 

00:16:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the big question for COP30 was, 

00:16:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

Is the world ready to accelerate climate action and build a system that is fit for the future we want? 

00:16:32 Isak Kvam 

And J., I know, as you were just saying, COP gives all countries an equal voice in addressing climate change. 

00:16:38 Isak Kvam 

And I know from reading your daily blog this year that there were quite a few different kind of groups of countries at COP30 this year. 

00:16:45 Isak Kvam 

Can you tell us about that? 

00:16:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

Yeah, and I was fascinated by this because it was my first time really stepping back 

00:16:53 J. Drake Hamilton 

especially because the US was largely not there, and see who else was there. 

00:17:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

And there are really three big groups. 

00:17:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

The first is high-income countries. 

00:17:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

And we know that this group is primarily tasked by the US with decarbonizing the UN, with decarbonizing their economies and doing their part of reaching our goal of achieving 

00:17:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warming. 

00:17:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

Some examples of these high-income countries include the US, Sweden, the UK, Denmark, and many others. 

00:17:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

The second group was foremost at Belem. 

00:17:40 J. Drake Hamilton 

This is the vulnerable and lower-income countries. 

00:17:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

Examples abound, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Haiti, 

00:17:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Marshall Islands, and the other small island developing states. 

00:17:59 J. Drake Hamilton 

The third group was perhaps the most interesting. 

00:18:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

It is the large middle-income countries. 

00:18:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they are trying to decarbonize while accelerating green economic growth. 

00:18:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

And you will hear-- you will recognize all of these examples. 

00:18:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

Brazil, our host, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia, and South Africa. 

00:18:28 J. Drake Hamilton 

And I'm going to get back to these countries when we talk about what came out of Bele. 

00:18:33 J. Drake Hamilton 

And. 

00:18:34 Isak Kvam 

I know as these countries came together to negotiate this year, the big topic was the new national climate plans that were unveiled. 

00:18:43 Isak Kvam 

Can you talk a little bit about what those national climate plans were? 

00:18:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

Yeah, the reason to think, the way to think about the National Climate Plans, it's a better name than the Nationally Determined Contributions. 

00:18:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

But that was a name that came out of when the UN negotiators were trying to allow space, lots of space, for the COP solutions to be implemented by countries working in their political systems, okay? 

00:19:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

So that's going on. 

00:19:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

So when we track new national climate plans to the Paris Agreement goals, we knew even before PELAM was convened, we knew that the NDCs did not add up to what we need, not nearly close. 

00:19:37 J. Drake Hamilton 

But listen to this. 

00:19:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

Here we're now a couple of days after COP has closed, and now 121 countries 

00:19:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

who represent 74% of global emissions, have submitted new national climate plans. 

00:19:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

So collectively, although they control like 74% of globe's emissions, these deliver less than 15% of the emissions reductions required by 2035 to limit global temperature to 1.5 degrees C. 

00:20:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

So they're not good enough. 

00:20:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

UN analysis finds that the world remains on course for a warming by 2100 of between 2.3 and 2.8 degrees Celsius. 

00:20:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

So that doesn't cut it. 

00:20:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

Many civil organizations and countries are urging COP 30 to encourage countries to update their long-term climate strategies to better catalyze 

00:20:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

more ambitious action. 

00:20:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

Instead, the final COP 30 outcome launched two voluntary initiatives, and they will report progress before COP 31 in 2026. 

00:21:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

And I'll talk about those later. 

00:21:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

So for the first time at this COP, negotiators acknowledged the strong likelihood that the world will overshoot 1.5 degrees C. 

00:21:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

and needs to limit the overshoot in its magnitude and its duration. 

00:21:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

We have to keep it as short as possible before it's corrected, and we can't let it get too big. 

00:21:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

So, at COP 30, there were unprecedented numbers of references to transitioning away from all fossil fuels in energy systems. 

00:21:43 J. Drake Hamilton 

Now, I was watching a lot of webinars and podcasts before COP, and I knew that transitioning away from fossil fuels would not be the number one course of action at the COP. 

00:22:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

But it came up a lot during the second week. 

00:22:04 J. Drake Hamilton 

And we knew that it was necessary to accelerate ambitious economy-wide emissions reductions targets. 

00:22:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

But what we found that since 2023, renewables deployed by 2030 must triple. 

00:22:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

And we're already on this path. 

00:22:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

Isn't that great? 

00:22:27 J. Drake Hamilton 

And we put ourselves on the path in 2023 of doubling energy efficiency also by 2030. 

00:22:35 Isak Kvam 

I think we're really at a point now where the renewables that are being built 

00:22:39 Isak Kvam 

are being built at such a rapid scale, not just because they're clean and we need to meet those climate targets, but also because they're increasingly becoming our cheapest source of power. 

00:22:48 Isak Kvam 

We've talked a lot about that in past blog posts and webinars we've done. 

00:22:52 Isak Kvam 

But I think that the speed that solar and wind are being built, along with batteries helping us use more wind and solar more often, is really changing the trajectory of how we're meeting those goals. 

00:23:05 Isak Kvam 

Can you tell us a little bit, J., about how fast wind, solar, and batteries are being built? 

00:23:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

Well, I'll tell you something I heard just a few days ago out of India. 

00:23:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

India announced that it had recently overtook Germany to become the world's third largest producer of renewable power. 

00:23:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

Did anyone on this call knew that, know that? 

00:23:28 J. Drake Hamilton 

I hadn't known that. 

00:23:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

So Germany is a big, very important renewable producer. 

00:23:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

and now they've been overtaken by India. 

00:23:38 J. Drake Hamilton 

That's why I was very interested in these middle-sized but growing economies in the world. 

00:23:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

And that's why I paid a lot of attention to what they had to say. 

00:23:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

But now we're finding remarkable things happening, especially with solar, with battery storage, and also with wind. 

00:24:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

So in the first half of 2025, 

00:24:04 J. Drake Hamilton 

Renewables overtook coal in global power production. 

00:24:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

Historic. 

00:24:12 J. Drake Hamilton 

Solar is spreading faster than we thought it would. 

00:24:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

Not we, just us at Fresh Energy, but even people at the International Energy Agency. 

00:24:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

They didn't know it would happen so fast. 

00:24:26 J. Drake Hamilton 

Solar costs have fallen tremendously. 

00:24:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

The cost of financing for solar has declined rapidly. 

00:24:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

and the scale of manufacturing is cheaper and much bigger. 

00:24:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

The real economy's investments in renewables, even after the election of President Trump, continue a pace. 

00:24:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

Since 2015, solar and wind's share of electricity production has more than tripled. 

00:24:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

That means we met the first really important goal of the Paris Agreement, to show that we can do this. 

00:25:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

Solar power is the fastest growing source of electricity in history, repeatedly exceeding projections for future increase in installed capacity and in generation. 

00:25:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

As soon as next year, it is estimated, renewables will be the world's 

00:25:27 J. Drake Hamilton 

largest source of electricity. 

00:25:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

The US has seen remarkable growth in solar energy and storage. 

00:25:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

So look at two points in time. 

00:25:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

In 2017, the US had, and write this down, 35 gigawatts of solar. 

00:25:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

So 35 GW of solar and storage. 

00:25:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

Just eight years later, in October 2025, the US had 

00:25:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

255 gigawatts of solar in storage. 

00:26:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

That is an increase of 543% in nine years. 

00:26:08 J. Drake Hamilton 

That's historic, amazing, and is really a stiff wind at our backs. 

00:26:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

It's due to significant cost reductions because of market adoption and advances in manufacturing. 

00:26:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

So solar plus storage 

00:26:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

for example, has recently been outcompeting fossil fuels. 

00:26:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

It's projected that solar plus storage will account for 85% of new energy construction in 2025, this year. 

00:26:43 J. Drake Hamilton 

No one ever thought this would happen this quickly, and we're very lucky. 

00:26:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

Solar and wind, however, need to grow 

00:26:54 J. Drake Hamilton 

at 29% per year each, solar and wind, until 2030. 

00:27:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

So that is a big gap that needs to be filled. 

00:27:08 J. Drake Hamilton 

One thing that was important in all the negotiations I watched was the nearly complete absence of the United States. 

00:27:18 J. Drake Hamilton 

The United States effectively boycotted the annual gathering. 

00:27:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

Just like a few days later, they boycotted the G20 finance gathering in South Africa. 

00:27:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

It was the first time in 30 years of climate talks, 30 years, that the US had not attended. 

00:27:43 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the US was not there to push a number of negotiators. 

00:27:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

They weren't there to especially push China. 

00:27:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

to take leadership action. 

00:27:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

China played a limited role in Bailan. 

00:27:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

They didn't even send President Xi. 

00:28:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they were like the US who didn't didn't send our president or he chose not to go. 

00:28:08 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the president of India also did not go. 

00:28:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

And China chose not to step into the leadership vacuum left by this US boycott. 

00:28:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

China avoided taking strong positions on all of the main sticking points of the talks. 

00:28:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

Also, a whole group of seasoned, smart diplomats, mostly Americans, were not present. 

00:28:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

For example, a country like the UK sent a very large negotiation delegation 

00:28:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

They sent about 70 negotiators to build them. 

00:28:54 J. Drake Hamilton 

Many world leaders and business executives, especially those from American companies, skipped the 2030 proceedings. 

00:29:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

And that was a big problem. 

00:29:08 Isak Kvam 

And I think that was kind of a bigger difference from this year's OP conference compared the last one to last year's. 

00:29:15 Isak Kvam 

For the parties that were present at COP 30 this year, J., what sort of climate progress were they able to make for the countries that were there? 

00:29:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

Yeah, COP 30 delivered on two things, forests and finance, but they undelivered on fossil fuels. 

00:29:33 J. Drake Hamilton 

No new pledges were made at COP 30 to cut fossil fuels, none. 

00:29:40 J. Drake Hamilton 

Uruguay and many other parties I listened to 

00:29:45 J. Drake Hamilton 

objected to the report that was coming out of COB, and the president of COB was obliged to suspend discussions on the last day for 30 to 40 minutes to try to calm people down and to get them to agree that he could go ahead. 

00:30:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

Because the text that he was presenting to negotiators contained 

00:30:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

no mention of a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap that many countries were asking for. 

00:30:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

So what happened in the lead-up to BEL-M is that 78 advisors from around the world put in almost a year of work, and they designed 159 different indicators-- emissions indicators, health indicators, water indicators. 

00:30:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

which quickly, in belem, were reduced to only half as many indicators. 

00:30:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

So what had happened to all this work? 

00:30:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

Many countries were asking that question. 

00:30:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

Many indicators were modified, were made unclear, were no longer usable, or were unmeasurable. 

00:31:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

So if things are not measurable, you can't track them, you can't achieve them. 

00:31:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

The EU said in public, 

00:31:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

We cannot accept the text presented to us in its current form, the EU. 

00:31:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

They said the Paris Agreement calls for adaptations to a safer, more resilient future for the poorest people. 

00:31:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

And that's 

00:31:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

What does that say? 

00:31:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

The negotiator from Panama, Juan Carlos Comez, said a climate decision, which is what the president was proposing, that can't even state fossil fuels is not neutrality. 

00:31:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

He said it is complicity. 

00:31:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

And what is happening here transcends incompetence. 

00:31:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

These are his words. 

00:31:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

Science has been deleted from COP 30 because it offends the polluters. 

00:32:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the final text was not discussed in person. 

00:32:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

So that is why the president of COP had to suspend the discussions for 30 or 40 minutes. 

00:32:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

Now, meanwhile, the United Nations Executive Secretary, Simon Steele, said, look, here, 

00:32:26 J. Drake Hamilton 

We have 194, maybe 195 countries, who have said in one voice the first time I ever heard that agreement that, quote, The Paris Agreement is working, and they resolved to make it go further and faster. 

00:32:45 J. Drake Hamilton 

These are historic things, and it is important that this was said. 

00:32:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

COP 30 showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking. 

00:32:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

A case in point, they developed an action agenda, which includes 117 plans, detailed plans to accelerate solutions, which is important. 

00:33:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the key outcomes agreed to at the at the climate talks in Belem were announced by President Andre Correa de Lago, who's the president of COP 30, and 

00:33:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

He voiced that he wanted to adopt the outcomes of the agenda items on his screen, and 195 parties agreed to at least triple adaptation finance for developing nations by 2030. 

00:33:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

Particularly, this was money that would come, will come from the EU, the UK, Japan, and other rich countries. 

00:33:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

and new efforts to strengthen climate targets. 

00:34:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

Triple the money will be given to developing countries to help them withstand weather events. 

00:34:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

So parties knew they needed a deal to help speed up climate action. 

00:34:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

The chair of the least developed countries group, whose name is Evans Gemma, and he comes out of Malawi, East Africa, 

00:34:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

He said, adaptive funding was the most important thing to our least developed countries group. 

00:34:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

This was our priority, and we made it a red line. 

00:34:40 J. Drake Hamilton 

So they made sure that the UK, EU, Japan, and others are required to provide the funding. 

00:34:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

What worked was that the least developed countries and another block, and there's 

00:34:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

dozens of blocks at COPs. 

00:34:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

Another one is called the Africa Group. 

00:35:01 J. Drake Hamilton 

They have some of the same member countries, but these two groups combined forces at COP 30. 

00:35:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

They planned ahead and they said, we are going to agree to align. 

00:35:16 J. Drake Hamilton 

That means we're not going to mirror each other 100%. 

00:35:20 J. Drake Hamilton 

We are going to align together. 

00:35:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

to push for more adaptive financing to be decided in Belem. 

00:35:28 J. Drake Hamilton 

Their strategy paid off. 

00:35:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

That is, they had a mega-coalition pushing, especially at the EU, UK, and Japan, and they now got a legal responsibility in the document under the agreement. 

00:35:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

That means this is subject to courts. 

00:35:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

to make sure that this happens. 

00:35:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

I was listening closely to a lot of the negotiating leads from the poorer countries, and I was very impressed with all of them. 

00:36:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

They all stuck to their time limits, which is something I've never seen even the US do. 

00:36:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

They talked really quickly, but they knew what they wanted to say. 

00:36:18 J. Drake Hamilton 

One of these people 

00:36:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

was a woman named Ilana Said. 

00:36:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

She is the Palau ambassador to the UN. 

00:36:26 J. Drake Hamilton 

She chaired the Coalition of Small Island Nations. 

00:36:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

She said it was better what we got, this increased, at least tripled climate finance for adaptation. 

00:36:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

Better that we didn't get a decision. 

00:36:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

It's for more funding for adaptation. 

00:36:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

Colombia's ambassador, another woman, Daniela Duran Gonzalez, she said, she pointed out to the president before he was required to suspend the negotiations. 

00:37:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

She said, Mr. 

00:37:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

President, this you've called the cop of the truth. 

00:37:12 J. Drake Hamilton 

The truth cannot support an outcome that ignores the science. 

00:37:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

She and many others said that the summit leaders had ignored their concerns before approving the deal. 

00:37:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

But what was actually going on was that the COP president was working on another option. 

00:37:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

He knew that we needed roadmaps so humanity can, one, overcome reliance on fossil fuels and transition away from those fossil fuels. 

00:37:45 J. Drake Hamilton 

by creating roadmaps that were called-- look for these letters-- capital T, capital A, capital F, capital F-- transition away from fossil fuels. 

00:37:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

He said, we need a roadmap for that. 

00:38:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

And secondly, we need a roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation. 

00:38:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

So there was a confused and contradictory story. 

00:38:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

And this was created by the many blocks 

00:38:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

which have overlapping groups of countries. 

00:38:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

And the countries are listed as both supporting and opposing the idea of including a fossil fuel roadmap in the COP outcome. 

00:38:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

Some of the countries that are on both lists supporting a fossil fuel roadmap, some supporting it, and then some also say they're opposing it. 

00:38:42 J. Drake Hamilton 

They include countries like Bahrain, 

00:38:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

Czech Republic, Cuba, Haiti, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. 

00:38:53 J. Drake Hamilton 

Many of the LDCs had opposed a roadmap. 

00:38:59 J. Drake Hamilton 

And these two negotiating blocs held their opposition for different reasons. 

00:39:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

Now, what was widely reported was that as many as 80, sometimes as many as 90 countries, 

00:39:13 J. Drake Hamilton 

So at least a little under half of those present stood their ground for a fair and equitable shift off fossil fuel. 

00:39:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

But they said that an intense lobbying from a few petro states weakened the deal. 

00:39:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

And if you look at who were the biggest blockers of the deal, they indeed were petro countries-- Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, India. 

00:39:40 J. Drake Hamilton 

But that was only 80 or 90 countries. 

00:39:43 J. Drake Hamilton 

And remember, there are like 194, 195 countries at Berlin. 

00:39:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

So not even half of them. 

00:39:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

So in closed doors negotiations, we heard that the COP president had said, well, look, we have 80 countries who were for developing a roadmap for moving off quickly off fossil fuels, but 80 are against it. 

00:40:08 J. Drake Hamilton 

And some of the less developed countries publicly backed a fossil fuel roadmap, and others did not. 

00:40:16 J. Drake Hamilton 

Some countries are members of both the Alliance for Small Island States and also less developed countries. 

00:40:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

But many delegates from the Global South disagreed, citing concerns about likely sudden economic contraction and heightened social stability, 

00:40:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

with moving too quickly off of fossil fuels. 

00:40:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

These were not fossil fuel owners. 

00:40:43 J. Drake Hamilton 

So there was a very big split. 

00:40:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

But really what had come up with and was proposed, what was launched by the Brazilian COP 30 president and together with the Brazilian President Lula, they said, I, as the president of COP 30, 

00:41:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

will therefore create two roadmaps, one on halting and reversing deforestation, another to transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly, and equitable manner. 

00:41:18 J. Drake Hamilton 

They will be led by science, and they will be inclusive. 

00:41:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

We will convene high-level dialogues, gather key international organizations, governments from both producing and consuming countries, 

00:41:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

industry workers, scholars, civil society, and will report back to the COP in April 2026 in Colombia. 

00:41:45 J. Drake Hamilton 

And Colombia and the Netherlands will lead and host this first ever conference. 

00:41:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they'll be doing it in time to have people plan for COP 31, which will be held in Turkey, and they have from April 2026 

00:42:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

till November 2026 to come up with the details of the roadmap. 

00:42:14 Isak Kvam 

And aside from countries, I know a kind of a major trend this year was a lot more local and regional governments that were present and active at COP30 this year. 

00:42:24 Isak Kvam 

I know for folks that were maybe following COP and just following headlines, you maybe knew that the federal government was boycotting COP, but what you might not know is that there were still quite a few groups representing our country at COP this year. 

00:42:37 Isak Kvam 

J., can you tell us a little more about local governments at COP 30 this year? 

00:42:42 J. Drake Hamilton 

Well, the UN COP 30 also made major efforts to unite people from 14,000 local governments from around the world, regional governments and national governments around climate action. 

00:42:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

The COP president is credited for getting, get this, our first ever 3,500 

00:43:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

Indigenous people registered and in-person at COP 30. 

00:43:12 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they spoke, they were eloquent, they were effective. 

00:43:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

And so COP 30 elevated the voices of Indigenous people like never before. 

00:43:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

I was watching it enthralled and very pleased. 

00:43:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

So when 195 parties approved the bail end package, that showed that 

00:43:37 J. Drake Hamilton 

Multilateralism can accelerate climate actions that benefit people. 

00:43:44 J. Drake Hamilton 

At first glance, COP today looks like brutal negotiation among countries. 

00:43:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

But if you pull back the curtain, you will see strong coalitions being built in Africa, in small island states, and across both of those together, in some cases, and then working in alignment to get a big victory. 

00:44:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

So a lot of the leadership I saw in Belem comes from far beyond only the white rich countries in the global north. 

00:44:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

And it was great to see. 

00:44:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

What I saw coming from the US was a strong presence from America is all in. 

00:44:26 J. Drake Hamilton 

And I recommend you go to their website, America is all in one word, and the US Climate Alliance. 

00:44:35 J. Drake Hamilton 

122 Minnesota entities, Minnesota entities belong to the U.S. 

00:44:40 J. Drake Hamilton 

Climate Alliance, which has a presence in all 50 states with 63% of the U.S. 

00:44:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

population and 74% of the U.S. 

00:44:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

GDP. 

00:44:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

Thus, it is the non-federal climate movement, and it was at BELAM. 

00:45:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

It shows the breaking of possibility in BELAM. 

00:45:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

America's All In was funded in fall 2024 by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, which allowed the US in December 2024 to file the US's updated NDC. 

00:45:21 J. Drake Hamilton 

It's their climate plan. 

00:45:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

So it's a big deal. 

00:45:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

AI, AI, as it's called, is a very large collaborative, including Minnesota companies, including 3M, Cargill, Best Buy, 

00:45:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

General Mills, Health Partners, Darcy Solutions, Target Corporation, and Fresh Energy. 

00:45:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

Six Minnesota companies, six Minnesota cities, Duluth, Eden Prairie, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, Rochester, and the St. 

00:45:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

Paul. 

00:45:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

And a critical member is Governor Walz from the state of Minnesota. 

00:45:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

So what happened in Belem is that 

00:46:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

There were a number of people, a small number of people, like including Governor Gavin Newsom from California, who was about at half the COP, and he was there for the week one, and he spoke about how California has now become the fourth largest economy in the world. 

00:46:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

And he talked mostly about California, so that was not his strongest point. 

00:46:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

I think he should have talked more about the rest of the country. 

00:46:33 J. Drake Hamilton 

We had one U.S. 

00:46:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

senator at Belem, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who represents Rhode Island. 

00:46:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

And he said, we have a system of federalism in the U.S. 

00:46:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

under the rule of law. 

00:46:48 J. Drake Hamilton 

But he said, I'm the only U.S. 

00:46:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

senator and COP 30. 

00:46:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

And President Trump refused to facilitate his trip. 

00:46:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

His badge, he held it up, his badge at COP 

00:47:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

was as an observer. 

00:47:05 J. Drake Hamilton 

He didn't even get to go as a senator. 

00:47:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

And we heard from a lot of representatives, former ambassadors, who now are working for places like the University of Maryland, describing what Maryland is doing. 

00:47:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

A former representative from the U.S. 

00:47:25 J. Drake Hamilton 

Department of State, he was representing 

00:47:29 J. Drake Hamilton 

the same two-thirds of the U.S. 

00:47:31 J. Drake Hamilton 

population and three-quarters of the GDP. 

00:47:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

They reminded the audiences that we have a federalized constitution, so state and local leaders have lots of policy authorities. 

00:47:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

States primarily determine energy policy, not primarily the federal government. 

00:47:54 J. Drake Hamilton 

And states primarily control building codes, 

00:47:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

and energy clothes, and local governments do the vast amount of EV charging. 

00:48:06 J. Drake Hamilton 

So one of the other members who comes from the Port of Seattle, he was in Beilam, and he said, The Port of Seattle has a goal of net zero by 2040, and it was never driven by the federal government. 

00:48:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

And he said to the people in the room, Americans, he said, 

00:48:28 J. Drake Hamilton 

Real work has always been done faster at the subnational state level. 

00:48:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

And he said, almost in caps, because I wrote it in caps, because it sounded like it should be, he said, Your work in the U.S. 

00:48:45 J. Drake Hamilton 

at the state and regional level makes a difference. 

00:48:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

So please continue working together, learning together, 

00:48:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

communicating with each other, and creating solutions together. 

00:49:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

And that was a good set of remarks from a number of important Americans at the left. 

00:49:14 Isak Kvam 

Thank you, J.. 

00:49:14 Isak Kvam 

Thank you for walking us through everything that happened at COP30. 

00:49:17 Isak Kvam 

And I think that's a really good testament to the important work that Fresh Energy does. 

00:49:21 Isak Kvam 

So much of our work is at the state level. 

00:49:23 Isak Kvam 

which is of course where so much of the climate action actually happens. 

00:49:29 Isak Kvam 

We are now going to shift into the Q&A section of our webinar. 

00:49:34 Isak Kvam 

For folks that haven't submitted a Q&A yet or a question yet, you can use the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. 

00:49:41 Isak Kvam 

Before we dive into that, I'm gonna give J. just a chance to grab a drink of water or something. 

00:49:45 Isak Kvam 

She's been talking for quite a while here, and I am going to plug a few things before we get into questions. 

00:49:52 Isak Kvam 

And the 1st is our upcoming webinar. 

00:49:53 Isak Kvam 

If you're watching today's webinar and you feel like you've caught the webinar bug and can't wait to join fresh energy for our next one. 

00:50:02 Isak Kvam 

I have great news 'cause our next one is Monday, December 8th, 00 AM to 11:00 AM, and it is all about innovative financing for clean energy projects. 

00:50:10 Isak Kvam 

So we've got our, my coworker John Vaughn will be hosting it. 

00:50:15 Isak Kvam 

It will be a virtual conversation with a few of our partners, Community Reinvestment Fund, Sunrise Banks, and the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority, kind of informally known as Minnesota's Green Bank. 

00:50:28 Isak Kvam 

They will be talking all about clean energy financing next Monday. 

00:50:31 Isak Kvam 

I've also got a blog post forthcoming with the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority. 

00:50:37 Isak Kvam 

So keep your eyes on the blog this month for that. 

00:50:40 Isak Kvam 

But tune in for this webinar next Monday to learn how Minnesotans are adapting to federal changes to keep planning and building clean energy projects. 

00:50:49 Isak Kvam 

And finally, you can also stay connected with Fresh Energy by joining our Powering Progress newsletter. 

00:50:56 Isak Kvam 

Feel free to scan the QR code on your screen now to stay up to date with our work. 

00:51:01 Isak Kvam 

On this newsletter, we're really sharing everything that's important for you to know about Fresh Energy, from sharing webinars like this conversation with J. today to about 10 or so blog posts a month. 

00:51:12 Isak Kvam 

Mainly, a lot of those are written by yours truly, as well as Fresh Energy staff. 

00:51:18 Isak Kvam 

We also share in-person events and much, much more for climate action that's happening in Minnesota. 

00:51:23 Isak Kvam 

So scan the QR code on your screen now to join our list. 

00:51:27 Isak Kvam 

And you can also sign up anytime at fresh-energy.org/subscribe to join. 

00:51:34 Isak Kvam 

Okay, that is enough from me. 

00:51:36 Isak Kvam 

I'm going to stop sharing and dive into our Q&A. 

00:51:40 Isak Kvam 

We haven't had a whole lot of folks ask questions that are here. 

00:51:44 Isak Kvam 

today, but we did get a few pre-submitted questions beforehand. 

00:51:49 Isak Kvam 

And the first one I want to ask you about, J., is a question we had from Lisa. 

00:51:55 Isak Kvam 

Let me pull it up here. 

00:51:57 Isak Kvam 

Lisa says that she understands that the Colombian government is leading the way by joining together 80 countries in a non-proliferation of fossil fuels agreement. 

00:52:08 Isak Kvam 

And she's interested in hearing more about this and what other hopeful signs 

00:52:12 Isak Kvam 

you gathered from COP30 this year. 

00:52:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

Thank you, Lisa. 

00:52:18 J. Drake Hamilton 

Yes, I hear a lot about these 80 countries, but remember the examples I gave you of as many, at least as many, the same number of countries who are really in Be'lem after an allied position of working to get climate finance for developing countries. 

00:52:42 J. Drake Hamilton 

who are now suffering from weather caused by climate change. 

00:52:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they were successful in tripling the amount that will be spent by the bigger, richer countries. 

00:52:55 J. Drake Hamilton 

And all of it will go, beginning in 2035, toward adapting and building resilience. 

00:53:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

So many of these countries were less developed countries. 

00:53:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

Many of them were island countries. 

00:53:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

So if you have 

00:53:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

the same number of countries. 

00:53:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

And there's still some countries that we haven't even heard about, right? 

00:53:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

And when I mentioned to you that now under 21 new nationally determined contributions, new national climate plans have been, who have been submitted, and that adds up to 75, almost 75% of global emissions. 

00:53:38 J. Drake Hamilton 

But maybe someone has asked, 

00:53:41 J. Drake Hamilton 

What were the countries who did not submit a new climate plan? 

00:53:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

It was 76 countries who represent 26% of emissions. 

00:53:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

So they are really derelict in their responsibility as signers of this UNFCCC. 

00:54:00 J. Drake Hamilton 

I think what happened in Belem is back in Dubai in 2023, everyone there 

00:54:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

Everyone agreed we needed to find a way to transition away from fossil fuels. 

00:54:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

But we needed a lot longer than two weeks to work out a roadmap. 

00:54:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

So it's very good now that Colombia and the Netherlands are going to host a conference that will be held in April, and they're working on it now. 

00:54:39 J. Drake Hamilton 

because they have to come out of that conference, mostly they have to bring to the conference a proposed roadmap. 

00:54:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

And then they have to convince the rest of the world that this is the right roadmap and do it under consensus too. 

00:54:58 J. Drake Hamilton 

And then they need to take it to the next COP, which is COP 31 in Turkey. 

00:55:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

Everyone was talking about this the second week of COP. 

00:55:09 J. Drake Hamilton 

They were talking about halting and reversing deforestation because they were in Brazil. 

00:55:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

They knew. 

00:55:16 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they wanted to talk about finding a way to, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner, which is what the UN language says for this transition away from fossil fuels. 

00:55:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

We haven't yet done that work. 

00:55:32 J. Drake Hamilton 

So the presidency of Belem 

00:55:36 J. Drake Hamilton 

is still the president until COP31 and they are going to be working I think their ***** off trying to make sure that they produce a text that can be put in front of people at the international conference to say what could be better about it. 

00:55:54 J. Drake Hamilton 

How would we improve this? 

00:55:57 J. Drake Hamilton 

How would we make it more just, more orderly, and more equitable? 

00:56:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

So there's still lots of work to do. 

00:56:04 J. Drake Hamilton 

Stay tuned for COP31. 

00:56:07 J. Drake Hamilton 

And remember what I said to start off. 

00:56:10 J. Drake Hamilton 

COPs are really important, and there's no substitute. 

00:56:14 J. Drake Hamilton 

There is no substitute for this process. 

00:56:17 J. Drake Hamilton 

It has its weak points, but it is the most comprehensive and the most fair in that every country gets a vote. 

00:56:30 J. Drake Hamilton 

And that's very important. 

00:56:33 Isak Kvam 

Our next question is from Jason, who I think must have been following your daily blog. 

00:56:37 Isak Kvam 

And he's asking what your experience was, J., following Op 30 negotiations this year, especially from negotiators from less developed countries? 

00:56:49 J. Drake Hamilton 

They were amazing. 

00:56:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

I listened to them because I was able to do it from home. 

00:56:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

And I had perfect sound, and I could look at the people. 

00:57:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

And they were all being, they jumped to their points very well. 

00:57:11 J. Drake Hamilton 

They didn't rush them, but they got, they usually were given five minutes to speak from each country. 

00:57:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

And then they could come back up again. 

00:57:21 J. Drake Hamilton 

And some, someone got in the queue again. 

00:57:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

I was so impressed. 

00:57:26 J. Drake Hamilton 

I was first impressed with so many very different countries from South America. 

00:57:32 J. Drake Hamilton 

that were agreeing with each other. 

00:57:34 J. Drake Hamilton 

So places like places that I'd never heard from before, like Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, even Argentina was agreeing with them on some things. 

00:57:47 J. Drake Hamilton 

And this is, I think, what we're hoping for, what the UN has tried to build, to be able to give people who are far away from the richest countries, who are the most 

00:58:03 J. Drake Hamilton 

vulnerable to the climate change, to give them a microphone and to have enough of them, and to have them to be able to prepare themselves really well. 

00:58:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

That's what I saw in spades at Bel-M. 

00:58:19 J. Drake Hamilton 

And it was very nice to hear. 

00:58:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

Very great. 

00:58:23 J. Drake Hamilton 

Made me very proud. 

00:58:25 Isak Kvam 

We have about one minute left, but I do see two open questions. 

00:58:29 Isak Kvam 

So I'm going to go through those two questions. 

00:58:31 Isak Kvam 

But first, I do want to respect people's time. 

00:58:33 Isak Kvam 

So if you have to drop off here at one o'clock, of course, feel free. 

00:58:39 Isak Kvam 

You will be receiving an e-mail from me either today or tomorrow with a link to the recording of today's webinar if you want to tune in more later. 

00:58:48 Isak Kvam 

We'll also be posting it to YouTube as well as the audio from today's webinar to our podcast. 

00:58:53 Isak Kvam 

So for those of you 

00:58:55 Isak Kvam 

For those of you that need to drop, you will be getting an e-mail from me with a link to the recording today. 

00:59:02 Isak Kvam 

But for folks that can stand for a few more minutes, I want to get to Susie and Steven's questions. 

00:59:06 Isak Kvam 

So Susie is asking, J., what did the 3,500 Indigenous people wish for? 

00:59:11 Isak Kvam 

Were they included in negotiations and decisions? 

00:59:14 Isak Kvam 

And are they included in receiving funding to adapt and build resilience as smaller island countries? 

00:59:21 J. Drake Hamilton 

Yes, I saw a lot of different 

00:59:24 J. Drake Hamilton 

not only plenary group discussions, but smaller breakout discussions where indigenous leaders from all over the world were speaking, were being listened to, were being given the same time limits as everyone else in the room, and had the microphone. 

00:59:46 J. Drake Hamilton 

And I got to hear from people I've never heard their voices before. 

00:59:51 J. Drake Hamilton 

And this was because of the president of COP made that happen. 

00:59:56 J. Drake Hamilton 

That was maybe its biggest victory. 

00:59:59 J. Drake Hamilton 

But many of those people were saying, we are at the forefront. 

01:00:04 J. Drake Hamilton 

We are already experiencing climate change, and we need some money from richer countries to help us adapt to these very big, very grievous changes to our lifestyle. 

01:00:18 J. Drake Hamilton 

and our own, and the existence of our country too. 

01:00:22 J. Drake Hamilton 

So it was very great to hear from those people. 

01:00:27 Isak Kvam 

And our last question is from Steven. 

01:00:29 Isak Kvam 

He has a few questions, but I'll kind of lump them together. 

01:00:32 Isak Kvam 

And he's wondering if it will be enough, if there will be enough, will there be enough renewable and energy efficiency to satisfy all future electricity needs? 

01:00:43 Isak Kvam 

And he's wondering if fossil and nuclear are threatening 

01:00:47 Isak Kvam 

renewable and efficiency as well. 

01:00:50 J. Drake Hamilton 

Well, remember what I said about solar and wind. 

01:00:52 J. Drake Hamilton 

They have to each grow by 29% a year by 2030. 

01:00:59 J. Drake Hamilton 

That's a really big change. 

01:01:02 J. Drake Hamilton 

But what's good is that solar plus storage are going to provide about 85% of the energy production in the globe, on the globe, in 2025. 

01:01:15 J. Drake Hamilton 

So things are lined up behind us, but we need to keep pushing forward faster and more aggressively. 

01:01:23 Isak Kvam 

Thanks, J.. 

01:01:24 Isak Kvam 

I think that's a great place to leave it. 

01:01:26 Isak Kvam 

I want to thank everyone for joining our webinar today. 

01:01:30 Isak Kvam 

And as I said just a few moments ago, you will be receiving an e-mail from me later today with a link to today's recording and other information both on YouTube and on our podcast, Decarbonize the Clean Energy Podcast. 

01:01:45 Isak Kvam 

I want to thank J. for answering all of our questions and walking us through the complete debrief about COP30. 

01:01:51 Isak Kvam 

And I also want to thank all of you for joining us today. 

01:01:55 Isak Kvam 

With that, I'm going to end today's webinar. 

01:01:58 Isak Kvam 

Thank you for joining us this afternoon and have a great rest of your day. 

01:02:04 Jo Olson 

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01:02:07 Jo Olson 

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01:02:14 Jo Olson 

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01:02:21 Jo Olson 

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01:02:25 Jo Olson 

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01:02:28 Jo Olson 

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01:02:32 Jo Olson 

All right, now our closing theme music off of the album Otuhaka by Palms Psalm. 

01:02:38 Jo Olson 

Thank you for tuning in.