COP this, or cop what’s coming.

I was a regular attendee of COP over the past decade in different capacities. I didn’t attend last year or this year, but I’ve been watching with real interest what is unfolding in Brazil.

Let me start by saying the world needs good intentions. If everyone who was fortunate enough to be in a position to have the time and space to think of others actually did so, we would all be living in a different world. Good intention is not the whole answer — but it is a necessary beginning. So, I commend the efforts and intentions of all in the COP ecosystem and beyond.

But as the world drifts out of the post-WW2 liberal order into a new multipolar world, I do start to wonder about the effectiveness of these meetings and how much of it, however well-intentioned, is more performative than it is impactful.

Thousands, or tens of thousands, of sincere folks meeting to discuss, energise, elevate and fund the future is a powerful thing to experience. You remember the energy of the packed halls, the declarations, the sense that something meaningful is happening and something has shifted.

But as the months pass, the world doesn’t seem to move quite as much as the moments in those rooms suggest.

COP28 in the UAE, felt like a turning point, the ambition was real and the people in the room had the balance sheet to actually back the conversations. So, the pledges felt like they had more substance than in other, equally well-intentioned, events.

They felt like major steps forward. Looking from a distance though, the amount of those sincere and deeply held intentions from the incredible teams in the UAE has not turned into real noticeable change.

Not because people don’t care — they do.

Chatting with Ray Dalio about his work on ocean conservation.

And not because the intentions are hollow — they aren’t. And if the UAE, a leadership whose vision I admire greatly, and who have had a transformational impact on their own country and beyond, can’t make material change at pace, then what chance do we have and why is this the case?

I think a material part of the issue, and I acknowledge a conflict through my work with Tintra here, is simpler: global climate ambition is trying to operate through systems that were never designed to carry it.

I often say that all investment is Impact Investment, the only variable is whether that impact is positive or not and to be able to deliver investment that achieves that goal there needs to be pipes through which it can be delivered.

COP gatherings excel at vision. They bring together leaders from every corner of the world, create shared purpose, and form coalitions that are impossible elsewhere.

What they are less equipped to do is build the machinery that turns those visions into everyday capability. They can announce the “what,” but they sometimes struggle to construct the “how.” How do we, as a Global South and climate focused community, drive this change in meaningful and measurable ways. And not just monetary but human impact.

Much of the issue is that for the most part the institutions that must deliver these changes are already stretched. Climate delivery today touches everything — finance, transport, agriculture, water, supply chains, digital systems, governance. It relies on national architectures that, in most countries, are still evolving. Without those foundations, even the best commitments struggle to take root.

COP28 Dubai

This isn’t in any way a criticism of any country or leader. It’s simply my observation of the reality that whilst the ‘west’ has been a culprit (not solely) in the creation of the situation most of the people actually impacted are from the Global South.

Further, it’s the understanding that functions such as digital identity, payments infrastructure, data intelligence, inter-agency coordination aren’t climate tools in the traditional sense, but are essential to the fulfilment of climate action.

That’s the issue beneath the surface: the challenge isn’t just willpower and politics (and let me be clear there is as much of this as there are good intentions), it’s in large part the wiring.

And this is where my own thinking has shifted over the years. The breakthroughs we talk about at a COP are important, but the breakthroughs we rarely combine with those discussions—the systems that enable a country to act coherently, inclusively, and intelligently — may matter even more. Without that layer, climate ambition lives in documents. There needs to be a way to deliver capital, measure its deployment and importantly measure its outcomes.

With my friend, conservationist, and filmmaker Craig Leeson

So when a year goes by between COP’s and the world feels largely the same, it’s not solely because nothing happened as the naysayers might have you believe. It’s also because the work required is deeper than headlines show. It’s architectural, social and infrastructural.

It’s happening slowly especially with the shifts in the global geo-political landscape, but whether that is help or hindrance in the short term remains to be seen.

To me the task ahead from this COP isn’t to make bigger promises or create grander headlines - but it is to nurture the foundations that give those promises a place to land.

If we can keep strengthening the systems that allow nations to carry their own climate ambition, then the momentum we feel in those crowded halls will begin to echo more clearly in the real world. In that sense, the gap between COPs isn’t failure as I lean into in my more pessimistic moments - but more so the gap between intention and outcome needing to be bridged by the infrastructure - to allow good intent to become good action in a fundamentally more effective way.

And that, at least to me, is something to be quietly hopeful about.