Ahead of COP30 taking place in Brazil later this month, SBC talks to Belinda Mathers Kaiwhakahaere Hangarau I Chief Science and Integrity Officer at Toitū Envirocare who will be on the ground in Belém to find out why she is going, what she’s hoping to achieve, and what a successful outcome will look like for her.
Belinda, we know getting to Belém is proving logistically difficult for anyone wanting to attend COP this year – well done on navigating things! Why is COP so valuable or important for you to attend?
Yes, it was interesting trying to arrange accommodation – hopefully that pans out OK!
We at Toitū generally only attend one overseas event per year to enable international engagement without too much of a carbon footprint! I have found previous COPs useful to get insights on what companies (and others) are doing in the climate space. It is always a great place to learn new things, find out about different initiatives and meet people. As we all know, Aotearoa New Zealand’s time zone makes it difficult to actively participate in international forums and even to attend a lot of live webinars, so I really value to opportunity to get involved in person.
Attending COP is no cruisy gig, can you give us a sense of just how overwhelming these Conference of the Parties (and their side events) can be? How do you go about prioritising and determining your focus areas to maximise the value?
Yes, that is tricky!
I describe attending COP as being like going to a conference with ~150 parallel sessions run by different entities, and no central programme. To add to the complexity, programmes are developed very late, with many pavilion programmes only released a week or two before the event.
I tend to work out a handful of pavilions that have sessions on interesting topics and plan to attend some of those, while making sure I keep some time flexible to check out other pavilions too. I have started looking at the official side events programme and pavilion programmes online to start getting a sense of what will be available.
The site map isn’t available yet either, which makes it tricky to know how much time to allow to walk between pavilions or meeting rooms!
This will be the 3rd COP you have attended – what are your reflections on how the urgency or focus of the conversations have changed in that time?
This will be my third COP – I attended COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh and COP28 in Dubai but didn’t get to Baku last year.
So I am interested to see how discussions have moved on, especially given changes in political support for climate action in a number of countries. I’m anticipating that there will be more focus on nature, adaptation, just transition and financing/funding rather than a deep focus on mitigation, although reducing emissions continues to be important.
On the negotiation/UNFCCC side of things, there has definitely been a move from design and commitments to implementation now that things like Article 6 have been settled. With several countries seeing reduced political support for climate action over the past year or two, I anticipate that there will be plenty of discussion about how the private sector can fill the political ambition gap.
What does a successful outcome of COP30 look like for you?
I will have made some new connections and strengthened existing connections, I will have learned about what other leaders are doing to drive ambitious action, and I will have shared some of the great work being done by New Zealand businesses.
Belinda will be sharing her insights and key takeaways from COP30 as part of SBC’s upcoming online event COP30 Debrief & Dialogue: Key Insights from Belém for NZ Business, delivered in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Finance. Register to attend here.
