The method to COP28’s madness: A first-hand account

It's a special Impact Report today: a first-hand account of a day in the life of COP, as I experienced this past week.

It’s almost winter in New York and Geneva, but Dubai is dressed for summer. I’m here for the UN climate summit known as COP, along with 70,000 other people. And while it’s meant to be a business formal meeting, jackets are coming off even before the sessions start.

To get into the public area of the conference known as the Green Zone, I walk for about a mile to the entrance from a gigantic parking lot where gasoline powered cars drop off visitors, without seeing a single tree. I need water. I’ve been here for less than an hour, but one thing is already crystal clear: Holding a climate meeting in Dubai is madness.

My first meeting is with Aon president Eric Andersen. He too has removed his jacket as we sit down on a bench in Dubai’s enormous expo city where the meeting is taking place. He kindly met me outside, as the registration line to get in is long. Why are you here? I ask him. Andersen usually skips global conferences like Davos, finding them too much about celebrities and too little about business.

But here in Dubai, he says, there is none of that glitz (I'll later find out that's not quite right). What you do have here, he says, is focus.

I’ll hear this word from at least half a dozen others during the conference, and it explains why COP28 has become the most relevant global business meeting: It has a singular focus on addressing climate change. And, adds Andersen, the number of people you can see here to discuss climate is unparalleled.

Aon is here to promote a deal with the Red Cross and Lloyd’s of London that will help the humanitarian organization prefinance its now increasingly common weather disaster response operations. He’s also meeting with other reinsurers, such as Zurich. And he’s seeing state and government representatives to discuss how they can partner on financing climate insurance.

Two hours later, I’m meant to catch up with Ellen Jackowski, chief sustainability officer at MasterCard. But our meeting is delayed, as the line to get into the official part of the meeting has swollen to thousands of people. I gasp when I see what’s ahead of me. And I gasp another time when I realize there is not even a single water station. I’m stuck here, sweltering and thirsty, for the next two hours.

Behind me, a pushy Argentinian media crew skips in the line, bypassing a Japanese delegation. In front of me, some enthusiastic Nigerians make a selfie video. Further ahead, a group of Saudis dressed in thawbs is better equipped than most of us to deal with the heat. I run into two fellow Belgians, who are talking to a Ghanaian official. COP is truly a global and “united nations” meeting indeed.

My next meeting is with Paul Polman, a Dutchman who became a prominent climate business voice while leading Unilever. Here at COP, he’s representing the UN Global Compact, which deals with the private sector. Polman impresses me with his knowledge of what COP is about: striking a global climate deal. One thing he hopes to see in the final agreement text is a "phase out" of fossil fuels.

After I finally get to see Jackowski, who is organizing a MasterCard mangrove tour later in the week, I meet up with the friendly Merel van der Mark, coordinator of the Forests and Finance Coalition, an NGO. But first, I manage to get some water. There’s so little of it here that Dubai Expo City sometimes feels like a 2050 climate change simulation.

The FFC provides an example of how NGOs can pressure global companies to adopt a climate and nature agenda. It targets multinationals and banks active in the tropical forest areas of Brazil and Indonesia, and informs them—and the world—of their shortcomings, hoping to effect change. (See "On our Radar" below.)

Despite the logistical challenges, the COP meeting is starting to grow on me. It's unique in the diversity of its participants, and that’s so refreshing. I head back to the Green Zone and visit the Microsoft booth, where a video of president Brad Smith in Venice is looping loudly. I was hoping to see Microsoft CSO Melanie Nakagawa or Carmen Del Segundo, IBM comms director for ESG and CSR, at the company's booth nearby, but both are hopping around the conference. Nakagawa later reaches out, offering that she likes this COP because it is "abuzz with ideas for a more sustainable future." She's not wrong.

My penultimate destination is a panel organized by the UN climate change arm UNFCCC. A friendly Turkish social impact investor, Kadir Gungor, shepherds me around. Gungor’s entire investment fund is centered on marrying the UN Sustainable Development Agenda with for-profit enterprises. It has made him into a well-connected COP regular.

To end our day, we head into the COP’s inner sanctum: the huge conference room where the actual negotiations are taking place between UN member states on a final resolution. We are granted “observer” access and enter just as the European Union announces its first financial pledge to the loss and damage fund, which is meant to compensate the victims of climate change. We say hi to the Maldives representative, and head back out.

A final surprise awaits us. Charles III of England is hosting a reception for top business leaders as part of his sustainable markets initiative, we hear, and with help from a friend, Valerie Keller, we are allowed in. Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef makes the same move, just ahead of us. It feels like a mini-Davos inside. As we wait in line to greet the king, we see U.S. special envoy John Kerry and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan right in front, waiting for their turn, among other CEOs and leaders.

After we have a “meaningful moment” with His Majesty, as his aide puts it, we continue the climate conversation with Laila Mostafa Abdullatif, who heads Emirates Nature-World Wildlife Fund; Halla Tómasdóttir, the Icelandic CEO of the B Team, a group of climate-minded CEOs; and Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist and explorer turned clean tech pioneer. The following morning, we have a final meeting, with the World Economic Forum's climate and nature director Gim Huay Neo, before heading to the airport for our flight back home.

Next year, we might get cynical from meeting so many interesting people with such diverse backgrounds, wondering whether they, and we, really need to be here. But not this year. This year, we are in awe of the convening power of COP28. It’s like a global climate festival. You meet like-minded people, make connections, and get energized for the tough challenge ahead. Count us in.

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Peter Vanham
Executive Editor, Fortune
peter.vanham@fortune.com

This edition of Impact Report was edited by Holly Ojalvo.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com