After the United Nations’ 30th annual climate summit, Aspen-based Climate Curve founder and executive director Jacquelyn Francis said there are still two things missing in the climate change conversation: more money directed toward mitigation and more collective behavioral changes.
COP30 concluded early Saturday in Belém, Brazil, when a coalition of nations reached another agreement toward tackling climate change. Francis attended the conference this year, her fifth year in a row, representing her nonprofit (formerly called the Global Warming Mitigation Project) that empowers companies and projects aimed at reducing, replacing or removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere through direct funding, network building and connections with climate-conscious investors.
“I feel like there’s a pretty strong purpose to these international gatherings, but at the same time, I feel like the private sector and corporations and the public are aware that real changes need to be made,” Francis said. “Because governments, especially an international group of governments like this, they just don’t have the ability to move at the speed that this crisis requires.”
It’s large corporations that will have to put money into long-term solutions to tackle climate change, she said.
That’s where Aspen could step in to make a meaningful difference, she added.
“The two things that are really missing in the climate systems conversation are more money needs to flow and more behavior changes need to happen, and I feel like our community of Aspen can do both of those in a huge way,” Francis said. “There’s so many people of influence, so many people who have board positions in corporations, or they run companies or they have oversight influence in the work that has to do with emissions.
“We also have the kind of disposable income that could literally flip the switch on how people are tackling emissions around the world,” she added.
A number of “highly intelligent individuals with extraordinary emotional intelligence and influence” live in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, like elected officials, teachers and ski instructors, she said. The valley can and should be a leader in tackling climate change, Francis said.
After meeting for two weeks, world leaders in Belém eked out an agreement that eliminated a roadmap to the halting of deforestation and made no formal mention of transitioning away from fossil fuel use. But it also included a plan for rich countries to allocate $120 billion to developing countries by 2035 to help them adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis.
In past COP conferences Francis has attended, she said final decisions have often come down to the wire. But the absence of any formal United States delegation was palpable, she said.
“The lack of a U.S. delegation was embarrassing and frustrating, and it’s hard to imagine that the country that has the most historical emissions over time isn’t even showing up to lead at this critical juncture,” Francis said. “I think, in some ways, it helps my work because we are doing really strong work in the mitigation space, and if the U.S. government isn’t going to step into that space, there are other organizations that are, so I feel like it makes what we do even more important.
“The void that the U.S. has left, it permeates,” she added.
Tens of thousands of delegates from nearly 200 countries attended COP30. But the Trump administration decided not to send any official U.S. delegates, joining only a handful of countries that were not officially represented at the global climate talks.
Francis attended the conference on behalf of her organization, which awards $500,000 in prizes each year. Climate Curve’s flagship program is the Keeling Curve Prize, a $50,000 award that supports 10 global projects from around the world each year. The application window (visit kcp-conduit.org/apply) is open until Jan. 15.
The prize winners will be announced next summer. The ceremony will take place in Aspen for the first time in about five years, Francis said.
Climate Curve is also launching a new award, the Methane Prize, which is meant to help bolster global solutions for methane mitigation in food and waste systems. The application for the Methane Prize will open on Feb. 1.
