🌍 The Private Sector is Redefining COP

I had the incredible privilege of participating in a private sector meeting with Dan Ioschpe, the UN Climate High-Level Champion for COP, less than 72 hours after the conclusion of the conference.

Dan’s two-year mandate is to lead the private sector—connecting COP29 Azerbaijan, COP30 Brazil, and the upcoming COP31 in Turkey.

After listening to him speak, I’m convinced his agenda and follow-through may matter more than anything that comes out of the centralized negotiations.

Dan described activities and partnerships being concretely built as part of a ‘whole-of-society’ approach (a ‘global mutirão’) that feeds directly into the new ‘Granary of Solutions’ ecosystem, confirming that the private sector is where the action is.

Today’s political complexity, unfortunately, makes reaching consensus on new policy increasingly challenging. COP now serves primarily as a compass. Implementation is happening in smaller, engaged groups—”Coalitions of the Willing”—that are buzzing and building solutions.

As a result, Brazil’s COP may be remembered as the first where the private sector surpassed the importance of state-level negotiations.

Key Takeaways

- The US private sector was out in full force, despite headwinds in formal government negotiations and what was communicated by the media, forming what I believe was the second-largest single-country contingency after Brazil at COP. Let’s go!

- The carbon market is the key financing mechanism for 2026 and beyond. The transition from the old CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) to full Article 6 implementation will completely transform the market next year.

- De-risking investment requires increased transparency and integrity. The introduction of insurance and dMRV (digital Measurement, Verification and Reporting) technology is critical. Platforms like Carrot are ready to go to deliver on this, allowing us to build structured financial products on top of transparent data at scale.

- Super pollutant (i.e., Methane) reduction in waste and agriculture is gaining significant prioritization among buyers and financiers. Top-down action, however, will likely focus on reducing methane intensity in the oil-and-gas industry, improving efficiency, and reducing leakage. This action may serve as the best entry point to unlocking a voluntary but binding agreement before COP31 in Antalya, Turkey (2026), as part of a larger roadmap to phase out fossil fuels.

I’d like to officially congratulate Dan for his work and express my gratitude to Oliver Wyman (Marina Gontijo) and Marsh McLennan for the invitation.

I would be remiss not to mention that Carrot was selected as a private sector innovator for climate finance in the inaugural Sustainable Business COP (SB COP) initiative—of which we are very proud.