Inside COP: The UN’s Top Climate Official on Week One of COP30
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Christiana Figueres takes us behind the scenes at the UNFCCC offices to speak to the man who now holds her old job as Executive Secretary. As week one of the negotiations nears its end, Simon Stiell explains the quiet but crucial difference between the COP Presidency, which sets the political direction, and the Secretariat, which guards the Paris process and connects it to the real economy. He also speaks candidly about Hurricane Beryl’s destruction in Carriacou, and how that experience turns what can look like abstract words and commas in negotiation texts into a daily, personal drive for urgency.
Inside the media centre in Belém, the story of COP30 is being shaped in real time. Tom stumbles on Ed King, author of the Climate Diplomacy Brief, to talk protests, leaky ceilings, fire ants - and who is sidling up to whom in the negotiation chamber.
At the core of the talks, three fault lines keep coming up: finance, fossil fuels and forests. Countries are edging towards stronger language on fossil fuels and implementation, but current national plans still only point to a 12 percent emissions cut by 2035, when science demands more than 50 percent. That gap is especially sharp for vulnerable countries already in heavy debt and struggling to even get full teams to Belém, fuelling talk of “roadmaps” to connect today’s constrained politics with tomorrow’s science-based destination and send credible signals that the transition is still on.
Alongside the negotiations, the action agenda continues at pace. As Christiana tracks down Alan Dangour from the Wellcome Trust, who shares news of a new coalition of 35 philanthropic funders and a $300 million commitment at the intersection of climate and health.
Learn more:
📖 Read the Climate Diplomacy Brief
📚 Learn more about Climate Adaptation Plan for Health
🌍 Check out the official COP30 website for background and announcements
🎤 What do you want to hear on Inside COP? Ask us on SpeakPipe or on our socials where you can also see more behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:
Instagram @outrageoptimism
LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or via this form.
Lead Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Planning Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan
Guest Producer: Juanita Silva
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
With thanks to Groundswell and Global Optimism.
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Inside Cop from Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivikarnak. |
| 0:03.9 | I'm Cristina Fierrez and Tom. Congratulations for finally nailing it inside cop because... |
| 0:10.0 | You don't need to reveal this to the listeners, you know. |
| 0:12.9 | I don't. |
| 0:14.1 | Carry it. |
| 0:14.7 | You have revealed it yourself that you... Welcome to Outrage and Optimism. It's so automatic so automatic for you i wonder do you say that |
| 0:23.2 | every time you get into the shower uh i don't say that but sometimes when i have been frustrated with |
| 0:27.0 | my kids i say something to them and they say can you please not tell me off in your podcast voice |
| 0:31.4 | which is a very disfisive thing to say okay can we should we start this all over again because this this is not very respectful. Yeah, let's see if you get it right this time. Yeah, let's see if you get it right. Hello and welcome to Inside Cot from Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Riffick Karnak. Look at that. Congratulations, Tom. And I'm Christiana Piers. Today, we look at what's happening in the negotiation halls here in Bel-M |
| 0:54.6 | and we bring you a conversation with UNFFCCC, Executive Secretary Simon Steele. |
| 0:58.5 | Thanks for being here. |
| 1:06.0 | So we're here in the media center and this year 4,000 media are registered to come to the cop. |
| 1:11.1 | This is where the story gets told. |
| 1:13.3 | And actually many, well, I was going to say many of the people here who are doing the briefings |
| 1:17.1 | are in here and over there at that desk is Ed King. |
| 1:19.9 | Let's go and have a word with him because he actually produces those specific briefings |
| 1:24.2 | that help all of these people understand what's happening. |
| 1:26.7 | So they'll have a really good handle and what's going on. |
| 1:29.3 | Hello, sir. How are you? |
| 1:33.3 | I see you. |
| 1:34.3 | I've been watching a massive protest or an action just outside with this blue... |
| 1:42.3 | Oh, I saw that. It's quite amazing. What's it for? Yeah, it for? I don't know. It was in Portuguese, I didn't understand. Okay. But I do think it's interesting about Bel-em, as opposed to the last three or four cops. Yeah. Is that all of this kind of actions and the campaigners and the kind of vibe feels back? Yeah, it does actually. That's true. Is that Brazil or is that what do you think that is? Yeah. Well, I think if you look back, we have been, we were in three, two or three fairly oppressive regimes before. Okay. And then the UK, right, where everyone was wearing COVID masks. That's true. Yeah. Trying not to cough in each other's face. Yeah. And that was, yeah, it was quite unpleasant. But no, there feels like a real vibe here now. And I think that's the, that's my main takeaway, the last couple of days. I mean, the float till has been amazing. The indigenous participation is amazing. All that sort of stuff is good. We had a riot. Yeah. We've had loo doors collapsing. We've had water pouring through the ceiling. Come to cot, people. It's great. We were staying in shipping containers where there were like fire ants and cockroaches. I saw the pictures of your shipping. Are you no longer in there? I know we are weak. We evacuated. But it is, it's kind of like you're on the front line and I think there's something good about that. |
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