Last year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil, was deliberately framed as the “COP of Implementation.” It represented a shift from national declarations toward tangible action, establishing an Action Agenda with specific objectives including tripling renewables and ensuring universal energy access.
Now, as the world heads toward two critical climate conferences, COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, this November—which will launch the second global stocktake, a review of how far the world is from the Paris Agreement goals—and COP32 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2027, a fundamental question looms: Can the international community finally move from making climate promises to implementing them?
During NYC Climate Week, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Columbia Climate School convened a high-level discussion of this topic. Moderated by Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the event brought together Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC; economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the Climate School; and Climate School dean Alexis Abramson.
In the parlance of COP, Lisa Sachs asked each participant for their stocktake and action agenda; in other words: “How are we doing and what do we still need to work on?” Stiell opened with progress worth noting: The planet is now on a 2.6 degrees Celsius warming trajectory, better than 5 degrees pre-Paris, yet far short of the 1.5-degree C target. New investment in clean energy has surged to $2 trillion annually, outpacing fossil fuel investment. Renewables now account for about 85 percent of new power additions globally, he said.
But, Stiell conceded, “It is a two-speed transition,” faster for the global North than for the global South, where high financing costs and perceived risk continue to choke off investment. “This disparity will define COP32’s challenge,” Stiell said, adding that Addis Ababa in 2027 “is an opportunity to really put the continent of Africa front and center.”
Jeffrey Sachs skipped polite reiterations of progress and made a different point, arguing that the Paris Agreement’s framework of Nationally Determined Contributions “was flawed from the outset, because it does not encourage an adequately long-term view,” and, crucially, “you cannot make a deep transformation in a piecemeal way.”
“We’re doing five to 10-year national plans rather than 25-year regional public investment strategies. We now have good enough technology to say you can afford a green system. It’s even going to be cheaper for you in most cases. It can be done. But how do you do it?” Jeffrey Sachs asked.
“I would say even for China, the United States, India, you cannot plan alone. You’re not making a national clean grid. You’re making a regional clean grid, and that means getting along with your neighbors well enough to show your hand and discuss in detail. Can we put some solar here? Can we connect here? Can we have a regional market?” he continued. “The reticence is tremendous because you inevitably unveil some pain for some constituencies, and no politician really wants to do that.”
For her part, Abramson expressed optimism about the energy and engagement of the students in the Climate School, and said she was seeing more conversations across disciplines spanning technology and policy. She gave the example of a conference of mayors she had recently hosted: “It was a reminder when the mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan, got up and said, ‘We couldn’t work with the utility, so we created our own.’ They created essentially a solar program for the residents of Ann Arbor, with no upfront capital cost to build out solar and batteries in your home, and community solar as well.”
Lisa Sachs asked Stiell another question about COP32: “Africa needs a lot of solutions, and yet much of the implementation lies outside the formal negotiation process.” How, she asked, did Stiell view the secretariat’s role in making the connection between those setting COP’s agenda and the actors and institutions outside the room “who set the financing terms and do the analysis to build the systems needed?”
Stiell replied, “When we look at the opportunity that’s being presented in Addis for COP32, really putting the African continent on the map, one of the important roles of the secretariat is being able to illuminate not just the challenges but the phenomenal opportunities that exist there. I see that as an opportunity to redirect some of that attention and to really start building momentum.”
