Needs must when global warming drives. As the word ‘climate’ becomes persona non grata – so to speak – on US government websites, planning is now underway for November 2025’s COP30 in Brazil – ‘the COP of the forests’ – where we will again promote Lancashire green-tech. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has also been developing new environmental links with China. But, in the far north, rapid melting threatens to release hundreds of gigatonnes of Arctic ice into the oceans.
In November, a well-armed trade mission of Northwest companies and low carbon experts from the East Lancs Chamber will be crossing the Atlantic.
Their goal is not Washington, where many climate change initiatives are being de-funded and closed by the Trump administration, but Belém in Brazil where the world’s fight against rising temperatures is being rekindled.
Zak Khan was a member of successful RedCAT and Chamber Low Carbon trade missions to COP28 in Dubai (2023) and COP29 in Azerbaijan (2024).
As MD of Northwest property retrofitting specialist Qwala (https://qwala.co.uk) he explains below the benefits of attending both – plus the synergies he expects from mingling with fellow thinkers from 197 countries in South America.
Qwala expects to launch an ambitious retrofit fund shortly to
“turnaround” energy-inefficient properties and help resolve the UK housing crisis by bringing them back into “proper use”.
Zak’s COP30 aims, he says, are to bring home great ideas and raise Lancashire’s green-tech reputation and export potential. More on joining our trade mission physically or online in a moment.
“The East is Green”…
Meanwhile, Mr Miliband has been building global support.
In March he visited Beijing to
“urge continued action” from China on climate change because “decisive action at home and abroad”is the “only way to respond” to climate change’s “existential threat”.
He is the first UK energy secretary to visit China since 2017 which he describes as
“negligence”
to future generations.
To shore up multilateral support ahead of COP30, the aim of the Energy Secretary and his Chinese counterparts has been to “sign a refreshed UK-China Clean Energy Partnership”.
Government sources indicated Mr Miliband wants a closer bilateral relationship with Beijing when some countries might want to use America’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement as an excuse to slide out of their own carbon-cutting commitments. Discussions on potential energy collaboration were also expected as part of a wider reset of relations.
He is reported to have met Chinese vice premier Ding Xuexiang and environment minister Huang Runqiu and attended the eighth
“China-UK energy dialogue with the head of the National Energy Administration (NEA) Wang Hongzhi”.
Ding is China’s top climate policy decision-maker. The energy secretary also delivered a speech at Tsinghua University on
“confronting the climate crisis”.
“The East Is Red”
is a Chinese Communist Party revolutionary song that was the de facto People’s Republic of China national anthem during the 1960s Cultural Revolution.
Developing world targets COP30…
With seven months to go, preparation for COP30 is now in full swing.
André Aranha Corrêa do Lago will be president of COP30 climate talks. An
“experienced climate negotiator”,
he is Brazil’s secretary for climate, energy and environment. Ana Toni,
“a respected Brazilian economist and the government’s climate change secretary”
who the East Lancs team met at COP29, will be executive director.
Developing world diplomates are reported to be rallying support for rapid emission cuts and more finance for adaptation at COP30 as they struggle to cope with existing devastation.
China fails to submit 2035 climate pledge…
However, China and 181 other countries missed the recent deadline to submit upgraded Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) 2035 emission proposals under the Paris Agreement. China is said to prefer “putting off the publication of [NDCs]” until the disruption caused by Washington subsides.
Only 15 countries actually met their NDC deadline commitments, including the United Arab Emirates, UK, Switzerland, Ecuador and small states Andorra and the Marshall Islands.
First call for Belém…
If you are interested in joining the East Lancs Chamber trade mission to Brazil – or alternatively would like to join us remotely via the COP WhatsApp Group – please contact Jamie Parker-Jervis via jp.jervis@chamberelancs.co.uk.
We hope to share Green Zone space with Extreme Hangouts (https://www.extremehangout.org/) which with 20 million social media followers connects thought-leaders and young changemakers to share best sustainability practices and solutions.
At COP30 – billed as the COP of the Forests – Extreme Hangouts will host 12 days of events and partnership opportunities for organisations committed to the climate crisis battle.
Progress in Brazil is essential…
Although Belém will be harder to get to, it represents huge opportunities to sign strategic MOUs, make international contacts, expand and widen supply chains, influence high-level discussions and inter-governmental decision-making … and meet nice helpful people, says RedCAT and Chamber CEO, Prof. Miranda Barker OBE DL!
As she did at COP28 and COP29, Miranda will again help to organise a strong British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) delegation at COP30.
Friends across the pond…
While the US Paris Climate Agreement membership will not have officially ended, it is not clear whether the US will field a negotiating team led by political decision-makers. Their absence would be a blow for keeping temperature rises low, Miranda explains. But she dismisses any idea of dropping the 1.50C target.
“1.50C is not an arbitrary figure. It has a scientific basis,”
she explains.
“The temperature was identified as that needed to prevent the ice at the world’s two poles from melting. If they do melt, much colder temperatures will be required to refreeze them.
American rare earth irony…
Unhelpfully, President Trump is also reportedly preventing US scientists from taking part in international climate research, according to former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.
But he is eager to make a critical minerals deal with Ukraine, as well as Greenland and Canada. Rare earths are crucial for the aerospace and defence industries – but also green tech.
That could mean the President’s focus on obtaining these minerals could have a positive knock-on effect that actually helps to unlock the US’s green technology potential.
Why COP28, COP29 and now COP30…
Zak Khan explains why going to COP28 (Dubai) and COP29 (Azerbaijan) was important for his company and why he has already signed up to go to COP30.
COP events are great opportunities to meet like-minded people from around the world, he says. COP29 was smaller than COP28 with all businesses in one hall.
“But that worked well because we easily met everyone who mattered,”
he adds. It was also the Qwala team’s first international chance to work in the prestigious Blue Zone where high-level diplomatic negotiations take place.
Qwala’s speciality is retrofitting – updating or modifying – existing buildings to cut energy consumption and emissions and provide warmer, more comfortable spaces with lower fuel bills. This often involves using new building technology.
However, Qwala wants to take a much wider place-based approach where it can transform buildings themselves, he explains and has ambitious plans in mind.
– A new energy-efficiency fund to tackle the UK housing crisis
In fact, Qwala expects the launch of a retrofit investment fund soon
“targeting and turning around poorly energy efficient properties”.
The aim says Zak, is to upgrade these to future standards and
“… in turn help with the UK housing crisis by bringing properties back into proper use.”
– Expertise and experience plus
As such, his interests have expanded beyond retrofitting to include regeneration and long-term sustainability. Both are areas where COP events showcase examples of what other people are doing globally who would like to pool and extend their expertise to generate extra business, social and environmental benefits.
A bonus, he says, was speaking to organisations like the Azerbaijan Investment Company at COP29 which is interested in potentially investing in Lancashire’s green technology.
– Cash, tactics, strategy and impact
“It is not just about making money,”
he adds.
“We have many tactical strengths. Being in a room with enthusiastic people from around the world – many based in the southern hemisphere – will help us to develop a strategy with a powerful impact and sales potential for Lancashire green-tech.”
To meet net-zero by 2050, some 24 million UK homes need retrofitting to EPC band C or above -2450+ per day, 7 days a week for the next 27 years! Many lose heat through poor glazing, uninsulated walls and lofts, old heating systems, and draughts.
Icing on the climate cake…
Why act … and continue to act … now?
Increasing evidence of human-induced climate change is reported in the World Meteorological Organisation’s ‘2024 State of the Global Climate Report’ (https://wmo.int/publication-series/state-of-global-climate-2024).
It shows that atmospheric CO2 levels are the highest in 800,000 years; the past ten years were individually the warmest on record; and each of the past eight have set new ocean heat records.
Looking north, the 18 lowest Arctic sea-ice levels were in the past 18 years; the three lowest Antarctic ice extents were in the past three years; the largest three-year loss of glacier mass was in the past three years; and sea level rise rates have doubled since satellite measurements began.
– Greenland’s ice sheet is disappearing in the not-so-frozen North
Widening crevasses are taking surface meltwater down to the heart of Greenland’s ice sheet where it warms and lubricates the ice bed the glacier slides over, speeding up its flow into the ocean.
Where ice meets the sea, crevasses also create fractures which form icebergs – it is estimated every 360 gigatonnes of ice lost raises the sea level by 1 millimeter.
Total Greenland ice sheet loss would push up levels by about seven meters says NASA. The Earth would then rotate more slowly. The length of the day would become two milliseconds longer.
And the melting rate is accelerating.
– The post-climate change extreme weather era has arrived
Scarcely a quarter of the way into the 21st century, global temperatures are already rising significantly. January 2025 was the hottest on record (https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-january-2025-was-warmest-record-globally-despite-emerging-la-nina).
In fact, 2024’s global average was 1.60C above the preindustrial level (https://iccinet.org/2024-global-average-temperature-was-1-6c-above-pre-industrial/). Ignoring reality leaves ordinary people paying the price, says UN secretary general, António Guterres.
That makes 1.50C even more important. Every little rise makes an enormous difference. Continuous individual disasters are now occurring alongside the larger slower main planetary disaster.
2024 actually saw 152 ‘unprecedented’ weather events, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation said in March
(https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/5cb119c71c6c4f8a89b837bf5cf353b8). More than 800,000 people were made homeless.
Good news – more businesses targeting net-zero by 2030…
New PwC research says the proportion of businesses committed to net zero by 2030 has nearly doubled from 28% to 47% since last year.
Whilst good, a caveat may be that this is 47% of businesses PwC typically engages with as opposed to 47% of the countrywide predominantly SME business base. We are seeing a cooling off of net-zero engagement from the average SME since economic pressures on them began to heat up.
PwC’s study of 750 businesses and 50 public sector organisations, also examined the energy challenges facing energy investment funding (https://www.pwc.co.uk/industries/documents/energy-survey-2025.pdf).
It says 89% used more energy last year – a fifth saw an increase of more than 10%. Some 83% will consume more in 2025. The main driver is technology; 34% of companies say energy-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), automation and electrification are the primary causes.
Capital costs are said to be the largest barrier to greater energy efficiency, with many blaming a significant funding gap for energy projects.
A PwC spokesperson commented,
“The UK is facing the start of a new transition in the energy market, and we are at an inflection point, where tough decisions will need to be made.”
Cutting carbon emissions is nevertheless the top energy management objective for 26% of businesses. Circa 55% have switched to LED lighting, 42% have renewable energy supply agreements, and 40% have on-site solar solutions.
However, only 33% of businesses have fully redesigned themselves to be more energy-efficient; a similar proportion have retrofitted buildings or use heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs).
