Transcript provided by Kensho.

Lindsey Hall: Hi. I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of Thought Leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a senior writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership team.

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, an S&P Global podcast where Esther and I take you inside the environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping the rapidly evolving sustainability landscape. In recent episodes, we've been hearing about key takeaways from COP29, the U.N. climate change conference that just wrapped up in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Earlier this week, we heard about key outcomes for carbon markets. In the last week's episode, I sat down with Marcos Neto from the U.N. Development Programme to discuss how these outcomes will drive action on the road to COP30 in Brazil in November 2025. Today, we're going to hear about how the private sector showed up to COP29 and how companies are collaborating with other stakeholders to find solutions to climate change.

Esther Whieldon: COP29 is 1 of 3 conference of the party forums the U.N. hosts. Earlier in the fall, the U.N. held COP16, which was focused on biodiversity. And somewhat confusingly, there's another COP16 that is wrapping up today. This one is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and it's focused on desertification.

Lindsey Hall: But here's the thing. The private sector is increasingly showing up to these U.N. hosted events. That was the case at the recent biodiversity COP16. That was true of the climate COP that just took place in Baku. And while Baku was smaller than last year's COP28 conference in Dubai, the event still had more than 65,000 registered delegates to attend. That's according to provisional numbers from Carbon Brief and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate change. This would make it the second largest COP on record.

And just how exactly is the private sector showing up? Well, I spoke to a number of attendees during and after COP29. And today, we'll be hearing more about this private sector presence. We'll hear how companies are working with public sector actors, and we'll hear how the recent U.S. elections impacted discussions at COP29 as well as what's ahead for 2025.

Today, we'll be talking to the CEO of CDP. This is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. We'll speak also to audit, consulting and advisory firm, Deloitte, which works with companies across industries.

We'll talk to the Founding Director of the Center for Global Commons at the University of Tokyo. This research center is based on the idea that the Earth is humanity's common property or global commons that we have a shared responsibility to protect. We'll speak also to the Climate Finance Director and Finance Lead for the U.N. Climate Change High-level Champions. And first up, though, Esther, I want to set the scene a bit for listeners who might not be familiar with Baku. I wasn't before this event.

Esther Whieldon: Yes. I've been curious to hear more about your trip. So what are your impressions?

Lindsey Hall: So very rudimentary impression from the short time I got to explore the city was it's a beautiful mix of old and new with stunning and sometimes surprising architecture. But I guess I'd say my main takeaway was cats.

Esther Whieldon: Wait, cats, wasn't it pigeons in Paris?

Lindsey Hall: Yes. But this city loves cats. Everywhere I went, there were cats the locals seem to collectively care for. At the grocery store by my hotel, you could buy a plastic baggie of dry cat food to feed to the kittens that were waiting patiently outside this front door. And a cat wandered into a café where I was having dinner one evening and just hopped on to my lap. But these are my very inexpert impressions. So for a better overview, let's turn to our first guest. She's a local leader who helps paint a picture of Azerbaijan.

Yevgeniya Bikmurzina: My name is Yevgeniya Bikmurzina. I am Head of Innovation Department in the Innovation and Digital Development Agency of Azerbaijan. That's an agency that operates Under Ministry of Digital Development and Transportation. So our direction is to support innovators, start-ups, innovation ecosystem players in Azerbaijan and in region in order to support and develop innovation ecosystem.

Lindsey Hall: So for our listeners who might not know anything about the ecosystem here, what should they understand? What does it look like, the landscape?

Yevgeniya Bikmurzina: Yes, absolutely. So I would start that Azerbaijan is like very diverse and a very culturally rich country. So basically, because of our geography, we are like very connected to Turkish states like Turkey and all over like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, but also because we have USSR legacy, we all speak Russian. And from the let's say, like very early age, we speak Turkish, Azerbaijani, Russian and also like because we learn English in school. So we do have a very diverse background culturally.

And that helped here to the students, to enthusiasts to build their innovations and already spread it around the world. Because Azerbaijan as a country is very small, most of the people think that there is no market for them and they like start immediately to work for the international market. So there's like several start-ups that are already very big, but they like grow up outside of Azerbaijan. What we are trying to do is we are trying to grow also start-ups in Azerbaijan and bring start-ups here so like we enrich the ecosystem, diversify economy and then like it spreads afterwards around the world.

Like I would say what people would love to know that it's very nascent ecosystem. And because we are on early stage of development, like we also, as ecosystem builders, we are like all of this lean method, like we try, we fail, we support what worked. We just cancel what didn't work. And because of that, a lot of start-ups, despite the fact that they are also like starting from the very seed level, they are already like very advanced in some parts.

And also, we have a big legacy of oil and gas. So we have a lot of really good engineers. And now thankfully, to all of this changes and being like very much into environment agenda, all of these engineers, they started to reinvent themselves in the clean tech, green tech and we have -- and we've seen a lot of very interesting projects even during COP with now like Pavilion here that's like research-based, very much interesting like biotechnologies, mobility technologies are like all over the country now and also expanding outside.

Lindsey Hall: In case you can't tell, Yevgeniya has a background in tourism. And now that we've set the scene, let's turn to our next guest, Sagarika Chatterjee. I'll let her introduce herself.

Sagarika Chatterjee: I am Director of Climate Finance at the U.N. Climate Champions. And what we basically do is convene everyone who isn't a government to take global climate action. So that means cities, states, youth, it means corporates, it means financial institutions. And then what we also do is play a bridge role back to all of the parties in the Paris Agreement.

And the reason we do that is we need to give a really strong message to governments about what everyone that isn't a government needs to see happen so that further action can be taken on climate change by everyone and the whole of society. And just to give you a practical example, during COP29, we held an 8-day thematic program.

We had thousands of participants, including government representatives, ministers, private finance, corporate, youth, and we also held a dedicated finance day session where we had about 1,000 people at an all-day event. And the purpose of that is to have a really big push on joining up the actions of governments and non-state actors.

Lindsey Hall: It sounds like the thematic program you just mentioned was really broad. But if you had to describe some key takeaways from that, what would those be?

Sagarika Chatterjee: Yes. I think the first key takeaway is a big push from the private sector on governments to see really credible, ambitious country climate plans that will cover mitigation, adaptation, go down to a sectoral level and really articulate what kind of finance is needed and how the private sector can collaborate. So that was a point that really came through to me.

And that came through some very formal letters, public open letters that came from a variety of membership associations and initiatives, including from the World Economic Forum, from IIGCC, from Atlantic Council, from WBCSD and also from the investor agenda, a collaboration of 7 investor groups.

Then the second thing that really came through was the encouragement from the private sector to see a big, new finance goal agreed at COP29. And that was surprising to me. I hadn't expected to see the levels of engagement on that from the private sector. And I think it wasn't the only factor but it was certainly helpful to finally getting the COP29 outcome.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. And for any listeners who are not familiar with what that COP29 outcome is, can you speak a little bit about that?

Sagarika Chatterjee: Yes, sure. So there was a couple of key things that happened at COP29 that will have implications for all of us in the private sector. And so the first thing was the big finance deal, which was USD 300 billion that will be part of the new collective quantified goal going from developed countries to developing countries, and that is USD 300 billion each year by 2035.

What's also included within the text that was negotiated for this big finance deal is a reference point of USD 1.3 trillion by 2035, and that needs to come from a variety of sources. And that, therefore, provides the segue for the private sector. And of course, what we need to remember is how difficult a COP this was. So we saw a lot of high drama.

The backdrop was, obviously, you had the U.S. political outcome from the election. You had also the World Meteorological Organization highlighting we've had the warmest year on record and the 42% cut in global emissions needed. We had the COP post from a fossil fuel producing nation, Azerbaijan. We had 65,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries, 80 heads of state and a very controversial issue around finance.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. And so you've outlined a couple of those finance outcomes that were agreed. You also outlined what was involved in your thematic program, this push from the private sector to see credible, ambitious goals and also the encouragement you saw from the private sector to agree on a finance goal. Anything else from that thematic program that you think is important for our listeners to understand?

Sagarika Chatterjee: Yes, sure. So I think from the climate champion side, a couple of newer areas that we've profiled over COP29 that are again relevant to this new finance goal include insurance, where we published a white paper with 10 case studies on insurance as an enabler of climate action.

And then we also supported new recommendations on adaptation finance, which we published with the Atlantic Council, highlighting 6 key areas where the private sector and the public sector could collaborate together. And finally, we published a list of investable climate projects, including some really interesting new ventures that are in Latin America focused on the sustainable agriculture, food and nature sectors.

Lindsey Hall: I heard this in many of my conversations in Baku. The idea that the private sector is increasingly showing up to work with the public sector at events like COP29. Sagarika mentioned insurance, and we're actually going to be back next week devoting a full episode to this topic on how the insurance industry is tackling climate risk.

I asked Sagarika to explain how private sector engagement has changed over time. You'll hear her mention a couple of acronyms. CBD, that's the Convention on Biological Diversity, which hosted COP16 in Colombia earlier this fall. TNFD, that's the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. MDBs, those are multilateral development banks, think like the World Bank, for example, and DFIs, those are development finance institutions. Okay. Here's Sagarika.

Sagarika Chatterjee: So if I look back about 3 years ago, the focus really from the private sector at COPs was on making asks of governments and then a particular focus on net zero. So today, there are, for example, about 650 financial institutions that are in the race to zero, which was the big campaign that the climate champions launched back at COP26, which was hosted by the U.K.

But now what I see is that the topics have really broadened out. So nature and climate have come much closer together. And there was great connectivity, I think, this year between the CBD, which took place in Colombia focused on biodiversity and nature and the climate COP that we hosted. And just to give you an example, we estimate that there's about 500 businesses and financial institutions that are in one of the campaigns we launched called Nature Positive for Climate Action. And that includes implementation of the TNFD.

So a real push towards bringing the nature and climate agendas together. And then some of the other topics that have really come through the whole of this year, not just at COP, have been around collaboration on sectoral decarbonization and how we can accelerate transition of high-emitting sectors, also project pipelines, how we can help advance project pipelines in developing countries and then, of course, derisking and the key role of MDBs in helping catalyze more engagement from the private sector.

I think one of the key things that happened over the last year or so was the change in the presidency of the World Bank. And just to give you an example, one of the initiatives that the World Bank has since taken is having a private sector lab, which pulls together some CEOs from key commercial banks and those in the private sector to look at how can more derisking take place, for example, through use of guarantees and how could the World Bank work more closely with the private sector.

Lindsey Hall: Sagarika, based on what you're saying, based on what I'm hearing, is it fair to characterize the role of the private sector as perhaps stepping up to work alongside the public sector and other actors to find solutions to climate change?

Sagarika Chatterjee: Yes, absolutely. I mean when I look back to the Paris Agreement back at COP21, I had a spreadsheet where I could literally list about the names of 20, mainly investors who were present at COP21. And there was a very narrow set of actions that were being taken, primarily measuring carbon footprinting. When I look today, just at the breadth of involvement there is in the private sector, it's insurers, reinsurers, it's commercial banks, it's obviously DFIs and MDBs, it's also institutional investors, asset owners, credit rating agencies, asset managers. And the list really does go on.

And in terms of the breadth of solutions, my sense is that financial institutions are looking at the solutions across mitigation, transition finance, across adaptation, across nature and nature-based solutions. And they're looking at the full range of asset classes, whether it's private equity, venture capital, what more can they do in real estate, in listed equity, how can they use their stewardship.

So I've really seen a step change in terms of the engagement. The question, of course, is how good can we get at collaborating with the public sector on some very tricky areas and working fast enough so that we can reach the needs that there are of developing countries for climate and finance.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. And you mentioned that this was a high drama COP for a couple of different reasons, including the recent outcome of the U.S. elections. How did that impact your conversations or what you were hearing at COP?

Sagarika Chatterjee: Yes, sure. So I think the first thing is we had 8 heads of state that came to COP for the World Leaders Climate Action Summit. It's always at the start of COP and it sets the tone. However, we didn't have the U.S. President. We didn't have the EU head. We didn't have the heads of state of China or of India. So that didn't negatively impact on the final outcome, but it certainly tells us a bit about what's the pulse at the moment in terms of international cooperation on climate change at the very highest level.

And then during the COP, in terms of the other things that we saw, we had some geopolitics playing out. We saw Argentina leave at one stage, France leave. We saw small island states also leave, although they were brought back to the negotiations. And with the final outcome for the new collective quantified goal, there was indeed much anger and fury from India, from Nigeria, from Panama and other countries that not enough finance has been put on the table.

And all of this against the backdrop of the G20 taking place in Brazil, where we did see a commitment from the G20 to multilateralism and climate finance. But certainly, many in the room were thinking about what is the impact going to be of geopolitics more broadly on climate cooperation, and what is the impact going to be on the ground, but also internationally when we have a new U.S. President in place.

Lindsey Hall: Anger and fury, those are strong words. Can you tell me more about what was behind that?

Sagarika Chatterjee: Yes, sure. So as I mentioned at the start, what was finally agreed was a reference point of $1.3 trillion for developing countries and $300 billion in public finance. But this is way beneath what developing countries need to see from finance.

So a recent report was launched actually just before Finance Day at COP29 by Nick Stern, Amar Bhattacharya and Vera Songwe. And this highlights, firstly, that all sources of finance are needed, not just public finance. And it also highlighted that 380 billion is needed in terms of public finance and that this must be for mitigation, adaptation, just transition and loss and damage.

And so understandably, developing countries who are being asked to reduce emissions and dealing with the very immediate physical impacts of climate change feel like it's extremely unfair and they won't be able to make the changes soon enough in their economies and to protect their people if there isn't enough money on the table.

Lindsey Hall: That report Sagarika just mentioned is the third report of the Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance. The group has been supporting deliberations on the climate finance agenda under successive COP presidencies since COP26.

Now, at COP29, I heard a range of views about the final finance outcomes. On the one hand, some touted the fact that the final figure triples finance to developing countries. $300 billion is more than the previous goal of USD 100 billion annually to developing countries. But others say that number falls far short of what's needed. I asked Sagarika about this.

Sagarika Chatterjee: So the USD 100 billion was the previous finance goal. So if you are looking positively at what's now been agreed, you'll say, okay, that's great. It's now gone to $300 billion. However, there are some who still feel that $100 billion wasn't truly delivered and many who feel it was plucked out of the air, and it didn't respond to the needs around adaptation and accessing finance has still stayed extremely difficult for many developing countries and for many entrepreneurs on the ground as well as some of the larger government projects that are looking for finance.

What I would say is despite what I've mentioned about the high drama and some of the anger that there is still with developing countries around the COP outcome, the more positive side is we did see 3 new country pledges. So we saw these from the U.K., UAE and Brazil. From the U.K., we're looking at an 81% emissions reduction cut by 2035.

Lindsey Hall: Here, Sagarika is referring to countries nationally determined contributions or NDCs. Under the Paris Agreement, countries update these climate pledges every 5 years with the goal of ratcheting up their ambition over time. The next NDC submission deadline is February 2025, and some like Brazil already announced their new targets at COP29.

Our next guest today is Sherry Madera, CEO of CDP Worldwide, and she also pointed to Brazil's new NDC commitment as an encouraging sign out of Baku. I last spoke to Sherry during Climate Week NYC in September 2024, and we'll include a link to that interview in our show notes. Okay. Here she is sharing her takeaways from Baku, including some reasons for optimism.

Sherry Madera: In general, people felt a little disappointed with the results. My own takeaways were a little bit different. My takeaways were the fact that actually there was a real movement towards thinking about the NDCs, the nationally determined contributions that countries were gathering to start talking about. A real whole of economy approach was starting to be embraced, which is different than what has happened in previous COPs.

And I think that's really actually quite encouraging. And I'll tell you a little bit about what I mean by that, whole of economy approach. I mean the reality is that countries who gather around COP tables are looking at making commitments not only to each other, but they're also making commitments to the world from within their borders. How much is the emissions target going to be going down? How is it that they can be relied upon to contribute perhaps to the global goals of lowering carbon and making sure the impact is such that we can live with?

But the reality is those countries have very limited resources in order to be able to affect those changes. They have their own spending on what the government does and then they have policymaking. And sometimes that is a lot, and sometimes it's not a lot.

So really, if we don't have a whole of economy approach that includes businesses, corporates, organizations that do business and effect change within those borders, then what is it we're measuring? What is it that countries are actually committing to? So the fact that non-state actors, those corporates were starting to be represented in rooms with governments setting targets and thinking about their new NDCs, I think that's really encouraging.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. So I'm hearing from you some reasons for optimism, some encouraging outcomes. I also mentioned that COP29 took place shortly after the U.S. elections. And so it was the backdrop for a lot of the discussions that I was hearing in Baku. Let me ask, does the current political landscape impact the work that you're doing, that CDP is doing?

Sherry Madera: Yes. I mean I think that the climate crisis transcends a single election. And CDP has been collecting data, has been the global disclosure platform for over 20 years. And we've already been through one cycle where Trump was President in the U.S. And what I can share is that during those 4 years and beyond up until now, the disclosure of companies from the U.S. and from the rest of the world increased during this period of time.

And even this last year, CDP's data increased year-on-year. And that actually shows the fact that transparency and disclosure for climate and nature-related data. This isn't something that's nice to have or is fully influenced by who is sitting in control of a single country. It becomes table stakes. Companies in any country need to be able to have this data at hand to be competitive, to be able to get access to markets, both at home and abroad.

And I think that, that movement has really shifted the dial already. So I don't want to belittle the fact that policymakers and the view from governments and leadership are negligible. Of course, it influences. But I also think that the collection of data, so therefore, where CDP sits in the ecosystem, is on a growth trajectory that's not going to be stopped.

Lindsey Hall: Sherry, what else should our listeners understand about Baku and its outcomes and how that's going to sort of affect the road ahead for sustainability?

Sherry Madera: Yes. I think that there's a growing interest in having less of an alphabet soup in terms of all of these incredibly earnest and well-meaning groups that are part of the climate ecosystem, CDP being one of them. We need to really think about how we join hands and create a much simpler path forward for corporates to be able to engage.

We talk about the CSO, the Chief Sustainability Officer. Really, we should be helping that become the Chief Simplicity Officer when we're navigating all of these acronyms. And CDP is trying to do our part by announcing over the COP period, a renewed MOU with GRI, one of the standard setters in this space and an update to our announcement of collaborating with EFRAG, who are the standard setters that move into the CSRD or the disclosure framework that is becoming mandatory across Europe.

So again, we're looking at trying to create that simplicity in an ecosystem that I know the world is looking at thinking it's too complicated. And we've just got to do more in order to be able to join hands across a very well-meaning ecosystem to make it simpler for everyone.

Esther Whieldon: I liked what Sherry said about the need to simplify the sustainability ecosystem. Lindsey, it feels like nearly every episode we publish, there's a new acronym for us to entangle for our listeners.

Lindsey Hall: Yes, same. And a note on a couple of the other acronyms we just heard from Sherry, the MOU with GRI. That's a memorandum of understanding with the Global Reporting Initiative, a sustainability standards organization. Sherry also talked about some terms related to sustainability regulation. CSRD, that's the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, a set of sustainability reporting rules for companies, and EFRAG, that's the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group.

Our next guest also talks about the role of regulation. I spoke to Kristen Sullivan, a partner at Deloitte, where she leads sustainability and ESG services. And as you'll hear, she actually referred to 2024 as the year of regulation. First up, she talks to me about Deloitte's presence in Baku, including a survey of sustainability executives released just before COP29. Here she is.

Kristen Sullivan: Deloitte hosted a pavilion where we had a very robust programming lineup where we brought together governmental actors, corporate players, those in the sort of intermediary space from a data, technology as well as NGO space.

We, Deloitte also took the opportunity to really feature some recent thought leadership and publications, namely our annual CSO survey. So our survey this year was launched just before COP, but we really had an opportunity to really lean into some of the findings.

And I think it was really well aligned with the theme, the finance COP and really looking at and sensing that pulse of the CSO community globally around that economic imperative as the key priority and the fact that 85% of CSOs have increased investments in sustainability in the past year, and that's up almost 10% from the year before in a year where there's been a lot of volatility. And even that emphasis on 70% of executives expect climate change to have a high or very high impact on their company's strategy and operations over the next 3 years.

And so really digging into that economic, that risk and opportunity imperative to really provide the context of really how companies are navigating this evolving landscape. The survey was over 2,100 CSOs. So those who sit within the C-suite of the organization, so CEO, CFO, CTO, CIO, every role that really encompasses the different parts of an organization, the finance organization, operations, technology, strategy and the like.

Lindsey Hall: What would you say are some of the kind of key challenges on the horizon as we come out of COP and we look to 2025 for your clients?

Kristen Sullivan: You could argue that 2024 has been the year of regulation or at least regulatory developments in the spotlight, which will continue, we believe. But I think we're going to start to see a bit of a pivot within organizations, really that deepening, that understanding of the ROI of sustainability, the value, not just the risk protection steps and mechanisms.

And naturally, the disclosure landscape will continue to evolve. We know that effective disclosure is essential to drive confidence and trust in the market and the reliability of that disclosure with the role of independent assurance, really moving towards that same level of rigor of financial reporting is going to be a continued area of focus and priority.

And I think it's that additional step towards really unpacking the data that underpins the required disclosures and really determining now with this higher integrity, greater confidence, how can that unlock really strategic decision-making and confidence to invest in some of these really important strategies to accelerate progress.

Lindsey Hall: Great. Well, what if I now ask that you think is important for our listeners to understand about COP29?

Kristen Sullivan: Interestingly, going into COP29, I think there was cautious optimism. And I will say that coming out of COP29 and just seeing the depth of engagement and conversation and commitment and energy, I could not be more optimistic as we head into 2025.

And as we look towards COP30, which will be held in Brazil, I do just think there is a growing momentum from an international perspective. And we know we're going to see, we're going to hear noise as we continue. Different jurisdictions are going to accelerate at different paces, whether it's from a policy or regulatory perspective. But I think the direction of travel is clear and action on the climate today is really going to be much more cost effective and productive going forward.

Lindsey Hall: Kristen just talked about the focus on action, and this is an idea that came across in my next interview as well. Here's our next guest.

Nahoko Ishii: My name is Nahoko Ishii. I'm Professor and Director for Center for Global Commons at the University of Tokyo. I am the Founding Director of Center for Global Commons. I was the CEO and the Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility from 2012 to 2020. During that 8 years, I see the power of multi-stakeholder coalition to promote the sustainability agenda.

So when my turn of 8 years is up in August 2020, I decided to go back to Japan and create -- found this center, Center for Global Commons to continue to promote this agenda. So my hope is that can I create this movement of multi-stakeholder coalition in Japan but linking up to the international community.

Lindsey Hall:  Nahoko said she started to see more lively engagement between state and non-state actors starting around 2012. That's when the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development or Rio+20 took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She said that kind of multi-stakeholder coalition building is partly responsible for the successful passage of the Paris Agreement a few years later in 2015.

Nahoko Ishii: People are still discussing why we have this miraculous agreement achieved. And then some people say it's about science, but then other people think about this is the power of non-state actors together and the multi-stakeholder together to push this agreement. I very much believe in that.

Lindsey Hall: And so with all this momentum that you're describing, you talked about the sort of miraculous agreement that was achieved in the Paris Agreement. What are you hearing now?

Nahoko Ishii: For the past COP, it's more about the commitment. But here at this COP, particularly this multi-stakeholder coalition are really talking about what is needed to implement those commitments. So the tone of the conversation has changed significantly in my view.

So maybe a good example is yesterday's conversation about the building code. In the past, commitment is more about how is the commitment to net zero building. But now the conversation is for them, their sector to achieve net zero building commitment, what is needed. So this is more like their seriousness of delivering their commitment.

They are talking about harmonization, standardization of the building code, which goes actually beyond their own sector. They need a push from the public sector or either state or city government to put the building code as a demand so that they can attract more business, more private sector, more finance to deliver their commitment of net zero building. And the same thing for food system, same thing for water.

Lindsey Hall: Nahoko said she's seeing this big shift to companies across sectors seeking global standardization and harmonization of rules.

Nahoko Ishii: And it creates a level playing field. It creates an incentive system. It creates a penalty of the people who do not follow that. So I see this a huge change from the past. From the past, it's more like a commitment. Now, they really see what is needed from public sector to deliver their commitment. So it's really, really fascinating, and I'm very encouraged to hear those tones.

Lindsey Hall: We heard Nahoko talk about the change from high-level rhetoric and commitments to more of a focus on actually rolling up your sleeves and implementing climate action plans.

Esther Whieldon: Today, we've heard a fair bit of optimism out of COP29 from some of our guests. And that's despite a challenging geopolitical landscape. We heard about the increased private sector engagement at COP29.

Lindsey Hall: Yes. And I should note here, I also heard optimism coming across in my interview with Sean Kidney, the CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative. We'll be back with that interview in an upcoming episode about how the sustainable finance market has evolved. Of course, the picture is not all rosy. Many said that the financial commitments out of Baku were much too low, and there's still skepticism about whether this new goal will be achieved given past unmet commitments and urgent financial needs of developing nations.

But I'd like to end on a positive note today because there was one other key takeaway I had from Baku, and that was that there are so many families with young children at COP29. In the green zone, the part of COP that's open to all, I saw lots and lots of kids taking in these exhibitions about climate change. And I found this encouraging as a sustainability professional and as a parent. To close this out today, let's hear once more from Yevgeniya from Azerbaijan's Ministry of Digital Development and Transportation. I asked her to explain the mood at COP.

Yevgeniya Bikmurzina: I would say that a lot of people who are coming and around, they started thinking more about -- just about our future and what we are building for the next generations. I saw a lot of people bringing kids here and yesterday, on the way I saw a parent with like, I don't know, 8 years old boy who was talking to their parent about like this future and more greener world. And I would say that would very much explain the mood.

Lindsey Hall: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, share and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast. 

Esther Whieldon: And a special thanks to our agency partner, The 199. See you next time.

Copyright ©2025 by S&P Global  

This piece was published by S&P Global Sustainable1, a part of S&P Global.     

DISCLAIMER  

By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that S&P GLOBAL makes no warranty, guarantee, or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this Podcast. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice. Unless specifically stated otherwise, S&P GLOBAL does not endorse, approve, recommend, or certify any information, product, process, service, or organization presented or mentioned in this Podcast, and information from this Podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement. The third party materials or content of any third party site referenced in this Podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions, standards or policies of S&P GLOBAL. S&P GLOBAL assumes no responsibility or liability for the accuracy or completeness of the content contained in third party materials or on third party sites referenced in this Podcast or the compliance with applicable laws of such materials and/or links referenced herein. Moreover, S&P GLOBAL makes no warranty that this Podcast, or the server that makes it available, is free of viruses, worms, or other elements or codes that manifest contaminating or destructive properties.  

S&P GLOBAL EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHER DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL'S USE OF, REFERENCE TO, RELIANCE ON, OR INABILITY TO USE, THIS PODCAST OR THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS PODCAST.