Watching COP30 From Toronto: Why I Stayed Home, and Why I Am More Optimistic Than Ever

As COP30 kicks off in Belém, Brazil, I am not in the Amazon. I am in Toronto. Cold sidewalks. No riverboats. No credential check lines.

And that is on purpose.

I have been to these global climate gatherings. I know the energy, the passion, the ambition, the chaos. I know the raucous back and forth of government negotiators refining previously chiseled commitments that were themselves refinements of earlier commitments. I could have gone. I could be meeting climate friends, potential LPs, founders, policy thinkers. I could be showing the flag.

But this year I am not going.

Not in protest. Not in disillusionment.

I stayed behind because something has shifted. The momentum is finally real.

We are transitioning from a world obsessed with climate promises to one driven by climate proof.

What COP30 Represents

COP30 is being hosted in Belém, a gateway to the Amazon. The Brazilian presidency put nature at the center this year. Not as a side event. Not as a footnote. The Amazon itself is the venue.

The priorities for COP30 include:

• Implementation of climate commitments rather than writing new ones

• Execution of national climate plans, referred to as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

• A new push for climate finance and investment into developing economies

• Forests, Indigenous leadership, nature based solutions

• Deployment, not just discussion, of renewables, grids, storage, and industrial decarbonization

In simple terms: Less poetry. More engineering.

The question is no longer what should we do. The question is how fast can we do it.

The Missing Superpower

One of the biggest storylines this year is that the United States federal government is not participating in the negotiations.

For many, that is cause for worry. Historically, the United States has been a heavyweight negotiator at climate summits. Its support or absence often determines the pace of progress.

But here is the truth. The absence of the United States this year might actually accelerate progress.

Without the gravitational pull of US politics, without the courtroom style sparring over text, a different set of voices can speak. Emerging economies. Private capital. City and state leaders. The private sector. Real economy actors.

The climate agenda used to be state led and market supported. Today the transition is market led and state supported.

And that brings me to why I stayed home.

The Data Behind Optimism

Optimism without data is delusion. Optimism with data is conviction.

So here is the data that matters.

Renewables are scaling at a pace that stopped being incremental and became exponential.

• More than 90 percent of new power capacity added globally last year came from renewables.

• Solar alone covered the vast majority of global electricity demand growth.

• The world is on track to add more renewable power in the next five years than in the previous twenty.

China.

• China is installing renewables at a scale that is almost hard to comprehend.

• Emissions from their power sector have started to flatten and in some months decline.

• They are adding more solar capacity in a single year than the entire United States has installed in its lifetime.

India.

• India hit its 50 percent non fossil electricity capacity milestone ahead of schedule.

• Renewables are growing faster than electricity demand. Coal use is beginning to shrink.

Investment Signals.

• Clean energy investment now outpaces fossil fuel investment globally. Not in theory. In dollars deployed.

• Some analysts estimate that climate and clean energy capital flows will reach multiple trillions annually within a decade.

These are not forecasts. These are installations. These are gigawatts on the grid. These are factories being built. These are supply chains forming. These are jobs materializing.

Do not get distracted by headlines or Twitter/X commentary.

Follow the electrons. Follow the steel. Follow the money.

Meanwhile, Back in the Oil and Gas Economy

Oil and gas companies remain the laggards in this transition. They are behind the fleet, pulling levers, blocking the on ramps, slowing the progress.

They want to make the path longer.

They want ambiguity because clarity equals risk. They want delay because delay equals profit.

But this time, the narrative has changed.

The world has moved from:

"Should we transition...?"

to

"How quickly can we scale what is already working...?"

The tide is now pushing against the resistance instead of the resistance pushing against the tide.

The Market Has Taken the Lead

I stayed in Toronto because I no longer believe the most important climate work is happening inside negotiating rooms.

It is happening in:

• boardrooms where capital allocation is being decided

• factories where new materials are being produced

• fields, forests, and farms where nature based carbon is being mineralized and monetized

• labs where breakthrough science is becoming commercial product

• pitch rooms where founders with insane ambition are raising first checks

And that is my domain.

I am not a government negotiator. I am a climate investor. I hunt gigacorns: companies capable of billion dollar value creation and billion ton carbon impact.

The biggest shift this past year is not policy. It is confidence in execution.

For the first time, the world can actually see what scaled climate success looks like:

• China bending emissions in real time

• India racing into renewables

• Massive cost reductions across solar, wind, and storage

• The emergence of carbon removal companies and ecosystem markets

• Industrial decarbonization projects that used to be too costly now becoming investable

We are past the tipping point of invention. We are entering the tipping point of deployment.

A New Role for COP

COP now serves a different purpose for those of us deploying private capital.

It is not the finish line. It is not the starting line.

It is the scoreboard.

It shows public will. It shows global sentiment. It shows accountability. But the game is unfolding on the field of execution.

This year, the conversations that matter most are no longer:

• Can we do it?

• Who should go first?

• Is this too expensive?

Instead, the questions are:

• Who can build it fastest?

• Who can finance it at scale?

• Who can monetize the carbon?

• Who can capture the market before their competitors?

In other words... Precisely the conditions under which gigacorns emerge.

What This Means for Investors, LPs, and Founders

To my newsletter subscribers: many of you are LPs, GPs, corporate leaders, and founders. You are not waiting for permission.

Here is my ask.

If COP30 shows that the world agrees on the destination... then we have a responsibility to accelerate the execution.

This is the moment to:

• deploy capital into proven solutions

• scale what works

• push innovation into the messy middle where infrastructure and technology meet

• treat climate not as philanthropy but as strategy

The next great fortunes will be made not by delaying the transition but by delivering it.

I believe the most undervalued investment vintage of the next decade will be climate tech in 2026 and 2027. Why? Because the world is moving from trial to rollout... and private capital will be the propulsion system.

That is why I am here. On the ground. Meeting LPs. Backing founders. Hunting gigacorns.

Final Thought

The path to sustainable prosperity is being trodden. Not yet sprinted. Not yet easy.

Not yet victory.

But the direction is unmistakable.

Policy used to lead and markets followed. Then they walked together.

Now the market is leading, and policy is trying to keep up.

I chose not to be in the rooms where words are negotiated. I chose to be in rooms where solutions are built.

Because climate progress no longer depends on global agreement. It depends on global execution.

And that is where I choose to spend my time.

Let’s hunt. Let’s build. Let’s execute.