316: Inside COP: How to Build a COP

About this episode

How do you build a COP? With just a few weeks to go until COP30 in Belém, we take listeners inside the high stakes and the complex mechanics of a climate summit: how they’re structured, who’s running the show, and what makes this one different.

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Paul Dickinson and Fiona McRaith unpack how high-level climate conferences actually work, and explore the people and processes shaping this first Amazonian COP. And, with multilateralism under pressure, they ask what we should be looking out for in November, and what success in Belém might look like.

Joining the hosts is Thais Bilenky, Brazilian political journalist and new friend of the show, to give us the view from inside Brazil: Lula’s positioning on the global stage, domestic tensions between national and regional politics, the tricky symbolism of COP in the state of Pará, and what all this means for international climate negotiations.

Learn more:

🌍 Check out the official COP30 website

📊 Find out more about the NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) and see what countries have submitted this year, or dive into this NDC tracker from Climate Watch for some digestible analysis of where they leave us

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism
LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

And we want to hear from you! What do you want to hear more of in Inside COP? Get in touch with us. Get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

With thanks to Groundswell and Global Optimism.

This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.