Nature Nate is back for his take on COP30 in Belém, Brazil!. COP30 (November 10-21, 2025) has just wrapped up. Nate shares thoughts on COP30, with a recap on his attending Climate Week NYC 2025.

The geopolitical context of COP30 was front and center. The billion-dollar shortfall in the UN budget and the near-empty Loss and Damages Fund presented a major challenge.

The U.S. had pulled out of COP, but it’s not all bad news. Instead of participating on a federal level, 24 individual states representing 54% of the nation’s GDP have remained committed. This year, China has stepped forward with the largest delegation. It’s driving the EV revolution and creating financial realities that have led to the lowest-ever prices for wind, solar, and batteries.

There’s still a lot of work ahead. While the world currently possesses all the necessary tools and technologies to stop climate change at an effective price point (heat pumps, EVs, cheap renewables, energy storage), new challenges are arising. A major new complication is the drastically growing energy use of AI. This pressure is complicating carbon targets, with companies like Microsoft potentially missing net-zero goals, and is incentivizing the prolonged use of gas and coal plants to meet the new compute demand.

Plus, cool stories from Climate Week NYC, including Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, and an Australian mining company committed to "real zero" (and no carbon offsets).

(The episode was recorded on November 20, when countries still yet to reach a consensus on mapping out the “roadmap” to phase out fossil fuel.)

This is Waste Not Why Not, a climate podcast from Ghost Island Media. It's hosted by Nature N8 (Nate Maynard), a sustainability consultant working on energy, ocean, and waste.

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