Can COP30 Turn Climate Ambition Into Action?

Climate finance has no shortage of ambition. What it lacks is coordination and infrastructure. While trillions have been pledged, far less has been deployed. The result is a widening gap between targets and outcomes, and growing frustration among investors who want to act but can’t find viable pipelines, policies, or partners.

COP30, hosted in Brazil in November 2025, could mark a shift. Not because of sweeping new pledges or headlines, but because of what’s happening behind the scenes: a coordinated, implementation-focused agenda designed to connect policy, capital, and action. No new slogans, just an attempt to make what already exists work better.

Dan Ioschpe, Brazil’s Climate High-Level Champion, is at the centre of that effort. With decades of experience leading industrial and infrastructure firms, he brings a practical, systems-oriented lens to global climate negotiations.

Meet the Experts

In this episode of Sustainability Wired, Lorenzo Saa speaks with Dan about the architecture being built to bridge the $1.3 trillion climate finance gap and what role investors must play.

They discuss Brazil’s strategy of making no new commitments, the structure of the COP30 Action Agenda, and three major financial mechanisms investors should track: the long-awaited climate finance roadmap, the scale-up of carbon markets, and the Tropical Forest Forever Fund. They also touch on AI, data infrastructure, and the opportunity for emerging markets to lead on implementation.

Listen now to hear the full conversation.

Key Moments from the COP30 Conversation with Dan Ioschpe

00:00 – 01:55	Introduction
01:56 – 04:43	Dan’s private-sector background and how he became a COP30 Climate Champion
04:44 – 7:45	What the High-Level Champion actually does and why it matters
07:46 – 09:55	Is COP still useful after 30 years?
09:56 – 14:16	What investors should and shouldn’t expect from COP30
14:17 – 17:57	Climate finance: roadmap to $1.3T, carbon credits, and the TFF
17:58 – 20:12	How the TFF ties forest preservation to long-term funding
20:13 – 26:41	Why COP30 will focus on existing initiatives, not new pledges
26:42 – 31:38	Should investors attend COP30?
31:39 – 35:49	The role of AI and Infrastructure in Brazil’s Climate Strategy
35:50 – 37:07	Why continuity—not headlines—is the biggest potential win of COP30
37:08 – 38:06	The art of sustainability
38:07 – 40:52	Rapid fire questions
40:53	Closing statements

Notable Quotes and Insights on COP30, Climate Finance, and Implementation

From climate finance design to the practical realities of scaling solutions, Dan Ioschpe offers an insider’s view of what COP30 is really aiming to achieve. These moments capture the episode’s sharpest insights on funding gaps, investor participation, and how climate action is finally being restructured for delivery.

1. COP30 Is About Making What Exists Work

Dan explains why Brazil deliberately chose not to introduce new initiatives at COP30 and how that decision unlocks greater focus, alignment, and execution.

“We said no new initiatives, no new pledges. So, Brazil through the COP30 cycle is not proposing anything new. We’re just working on existing ideas…We mapped 600 existing initiatives: 300 hundred of them are more active than the other 300. So, we brought those 300 in and we created 30 activation groups. So, each key objective has an activation group. Within this activation group, the owners of the initiatives are invited to sit in there and to guide the process of this initiative.“

2. The Three Big Financial Stories of COP30

He outlines the three key financial outcomes expected from the gathering and why bridging the capital gap depends on building real frameworks, not just setting targets.

“There are three big financial stories at COP30. One is the delivery of the roadmap… They will deliver an effective roadmap after consultation with a lot of people saying this is how we move from 300 billion to 1.3 trillion. TFF is a sort of a parallel that adds in there, but it’s being developed in parallel, and it’s supposed to be launched at COP30 — that’s our expectation, effectively launched with money in there to get going. The third one is carbon credit, which… is a very sophisticated theme that Brazil and many other countries are seeing.”

3. Investors Should Expect Roadmaps, Not Miracles

Dan emphasizes that COP30 will not deliver a silver bullet but can lay down the practical infrastructure needed to move from fragmented ambition to coordinated action.

“This is a cycle, so do not expect Cop 30 to be a solution. In itself, it’s just a part of the puzzle. And then next year we go to the next cop and so forth, and we keep working on these solutions, every other day that that’s what could really make a significant difference.”

4. AI and Infrastructure Can Be Climate Enablers If Done Right

Dan sees AI as a catalyst, not a threat, if tied to clean energy and built in the right places.

“I tend to think that anything that will foster productivity, efficiency, business growth, at the end of the day should be positive…Now you need to bring the sustainability part of it. So, AI data centers are the most energy demanding sector in the world right now. But is this a problem? Is this necessarily a problem? Maybe not. Maybe it’s part of the solution. Because again, we go back to scale. So, imagine this amazing increase of  grids, storage, renewable capabilities that you could have to face that.”