Why I’m optimistic about COP 31 and all the days beyond

“And I would like today to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier [people] . . . who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we must raise our [children] differently...”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Arundhati Roy

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Around this time for the past five years I’ve written about why I feel optimistic about the upcoming COP. The trajectory of those blogs follows my personal journey.

The first blog was written in the midst of a global pandemic. So much was uncertain. In the world and in myself. Yet the pandemic had also forced me to slow down.

I spent more time in nature and started to revel in the good. I programmed my reticular activating system to see what was going right – not an easy feat when your work is focused on all that’s going wrong in the world.

Because Loss and Damage really is the culmination of so many failures. Failure to achieve the overarching objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is but one of them.

I practiced intentional gratitude for things I’d long taken for granted. If you ask me to list 100 things I’m grateful for, I could do so without having to dig very deep.

As time went on, I began to envision the world I wanted to live in and journal about it daily.

Another two COPs passed.

A Fund long fought for was established and then operationalised. But the conditions were far from perfect. Developing countries were forced to make an impossible choice between a Fund with sub-optimal conditions or no fund at all.

Then after all of that was capitalised with a tiny fraction of the needs. And I do mean tiny fraction. Developed countries said, “We need to see it work first.” But how can it work when there’s not enough money? This is not that world, I thought. But still, you do what you can with what you have, right?

Then came COP 29. It was late 2024. After months of travel I became unwell in the weeks before I was meant to travel to Baku and opted to follow from home. I watched the events unfold in my sweatpants on a 13” screen. Got updates from chats. Saw what was trending across social media. Heard about conversations in corridors. And shenanigans. So many shenanigans. But I didn’t expect what happened in the closing plenary that night. The Global Majority betrayed again. Different day, same story.

“What the actual . . . “ I said out loud (though I finished that sentence). Many more four-letter words followed. Both written and spoken.

I wrote furiously in chats. “Did that really just happen?”

And that was the agreement to a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance that was far, far below what was possible. In a most insidious way.

I asked myself, “How can that be?” We know there is enough money in the world for developed countries to provide public finance for climate action at the scale and scope of the needs across the Global Majority.

Everyone can thrive.

Why isn’t this world being allowed to emerge?

Because the political will is lacking from the most powerful countries. That’s why.

It was devastating.

I also felt like a fraud.

I wrote about feeling optimistic about this COP. Did I lie to myself? Did I lie to others?

The following days felt heavy. The Loss and Damage Collaboration (L&DC) had its first ever townhall.

“Where do we go from here”, we asked our community.

We agreed that we needed to broaden our scope beyond the UNFCCC.

But we didn't yet know what that looked like.

I did some scoping. Gathered opinions.

In early 2025 I had a conversation with a colleague who had just left a role in government.

I told them, “We need to show developed country governments that they can provide climate finance at the scale and scope of the needs in developing countries without affecting their citizens.”

There was a pause. A sigh. And I can imagine a thought along the lines of: “This person. How naïve.” It was a voice call so there may have been an eye roll thrown in for good measure.

“They know that”, they told me. “They just don’t want to do it.”

Alright, I thought.

That’s the direction we need to go. To mobilise the political will to create the world we want.

By the end of that year a plan had emerged for two new workstreams.

One would be called the Mosaic of Solutions. It would look at how we could fund solutions across a mosaic to create a thriving world.

The second would be called Systems Change and it would look at developing systems that would allow that thriving world to emerge and sustain.

Because what happened that night in that closing plenary in Baku happened because the systems we have today are relics from another era shored up by the politics of today. They not only allow but actively – and I do mean actively - encourage colonial continuity and the domination of a few countries over the majority. The domination of nature by a minority of one species.

And yes, geopolitics are changing. But that fact remains true.

So here we are, two years later.

The world feels topsy turvy.

So much is uncertain.

So many people are scared.

And for good reason.

Wars are waging. Genocide is playing out before our eyes. Too many people are going without, El Niño threatens to exacerbate the suffering. And, unbelievably, as climate impacts intensity, climate science is under threat.

We must continue to fight for the world we want.

And make meaning of the rubble as the systems crumble.

The good news is that so many are finding deeper meaning.

Encouraging us to focus on the good while fighting for a better world.

Working on multiple fronts.

Warriors of Love I think of them.

I felt and saw them in rooms across London during London Climate Action Week.

As sweat poured down my face, my heart glowed with recognition.

“You are my tribe”, it thought.

I could see and feel the yearning. For something more. Something deeper.

People want to believe. They are craving connection. And who’s showing them what’s possible?

The Warriors of Love.

I encountered them in person across London and again in New York a few months later.

I attended an evening event at Riverside Church hosted by the Center for Earth Ethics where person after person talked about the new world that was emerging.  

Then a daylong event on reawakening our connection to Mother Earth organised by the Fetzer Institute and their Environmental Collaborative of leaders who understand that the environmental challenges we face today are deeply spiritual in their roots.

I felt it at a book launch hosted by the All We Can Save Project again at the F**k Doom party hosted by Futerra.

I also felt it in many spaces held by Project Dandelion and in conversations with colleagues from Global Optimism as they talked about their collaboration with Plum Village on climate leadership.

And then, I got hit with the most powerful wave of love at a basic building on a regular street in Manhattan, when I entered the space where The SideBar had set up their temporary headquarters.

A few rooms of space. To cultivate connection, spark ideas and spur collaboration.

In one of those rooms the L&DC and the Climate Leadership Initiative held space for discussions on creating the world we want.

What do we imagine is possible?

What type of leadership do we need?

It felt nourishing.

Like I had plugged my body into a source of infinite, powerful energy.

A power bank of love, connection, passion, enthusiasm, faith and so many other things.

Hearts open and minds alive with possibility.

I was exhausted and yet, I can’t remember the last time I’d felt so alive.

Because I knew - I knew – we were on the right path.

Our work on the Mosaic of Solutions and the Systems Change was resonating and relevant across all the spaces and places.

Nearly two years on from that townhall in the rubble of COP 29, a new vision was born. A new path emerged.

And so it came to be that in a very simple room with a few extraordinary people we launched our I Believe . . . campaign.

We believe in a world in which all humans, all other species and all ecosystems are thriving on a healthy planet.

What allows us to believe is knowing that the solutions, the money, the resources - all the things - we need to create this world -  they all exist.

Our work on the Mosaic of Solutions draws on research by Oil Change International - captured in an aptly named brief called “We Can Pay For It” (because yes, we can), that finds that 6.6 trillion USD in public finance could be mobilised and provided by developed countries in the Global North to so-called developing countries in the Global Majority.

It’s enough to prevent loss and damage through mitigation and a transition that is truly just. It’s enough to ensure adaptation is scaled up to the extent possible  to reduce loss and damage. And it's enough to address loss and damage.

All while also scaling up sustainable development, humanitarian assistance, disaster risk reduction and everything that’s needed for everyone on planet Earth to thrive.

And none of that needs to come at the expense of the average citizen in a developed country. Developed countries often argue that their citizens are grappling with cost of living crises and therefore can’t afford to fulfil their obligations to provide climate finance.

But here’s the thing . . .

Developed countries are losing an estimated 492 billion USD in tax that could be captured: 347.6 billion USD is from multinational corporations shifting profits while 144.8 billion USD is lost to individuals hiding their wealth offshore.

Imagine what that could do? That’s more than the estimated annual adaptation needs across the Global Majority.

The UK alone could mobilise 32.6 billion USD a year with a 2 percent wealth tax on net assets worth more than 13.5 million USD while the EU could collectively mobilise 66 billion USD a year through financial transaction tax.

Mobilising is one thing. Providing is quite another. But the good news is that political will can get this finance to where it’s needed most once it’s mobilised.

And the even better news is that rather than ask their countries to do the right thing, citizens can demand it.

Our work on Systems Change shows what that could look like for economies to be based on Indigenous concepts of relationality and reciprocity to underpin economies and to restore our relationship to what we call nature, which is really an extension of ourselves.

It’s a guide to coming home both to ourselves and to each other. It means swapping cognitive dissonance for an understanding that we are all neighbours on this planet we call Earth.

It shows that inequality is bad for everyone. It truly is. And mass consumption is one of the many ways we numb out to the pain of being disconnected from ourselves, each other and the world around us. One of the ways we avoid feeling the feels. If only we knew how much power could be released if we alchemised those emotions.

This guide to creating the world we want demonstrates that reparations make the world better for everyone. Because only when we do what we can to right historical wrongs in the present moment – recognising that some wrongs, like ancestral trauma, continue to live in bodies –  can move into a brighter future.

The CLI has been on a similar journey. Our flagship New Generation Program has walked alongside over 40 young climate leaders from X countries.

At the UNFCCC intersessional - the SBs as it’s colloquially known - this spring I was sitting in a discussion on the Global Stocktake. Four of the statements from vulnerable negotiating groups were made by our alumni. This methodology grounded in care and long-term accompaniment works. The evidence is all around us in young people shaping climate decisions at all levels.

My own journey mirrored theirs in many ways. I decided to train as a coach. I wondered how I could put these new skills to use to support more climate leaders, beyond the UNFCCC.

The CLI team rumbled and rumbled on that and the outcome of those rumbles is that we decided to launch two new programs.

We gave the first a working title of “The Activators”. It will support a small group of founders and executive directors of climate organisations from the Global Majority. The other is currently called “The Troublemakers” (my favourite name of the three). Through that program we’ll support climate activists from the Global Majority.

And so, with the opening plenary of COP 31 just days away, I have never felt more optimistic.

The solutions and the resources exist. We just need to mobilise the political will to matchmake them.

And conscious leadership is emerging and evolving to light the path.

The new world is on her way.

We will continue to do what we can to hasten her arrival.

Many others are doing the same.

And we hope you’ll join us.