A striking illustration? On one hand, the Brazilian government announced new oil drilling projects at the mouth of the Amazon River - just days before its COP. This clearly reflects the headwinds facing sustainability efforts, at a time when the U.S. administration downplays climate action, and environmental and social issues more broadly take a back seat - often at the expense of both collective and individual interests.

On the other hand, the host country is promoting the creation of an innovative mechanism, the Tropical Forest Forever Initiative, which borrows some well-known principles from the foundation model: raising funds, investing them, and using the returns to co-finance the protection of tropical forests - specifically through incentive-based mechanisms for governments. It’s certainly no magic formula, but it illustrates a more action-oriented COP30, focused on nature-based solutions, the fight against deforestation, climate adaptation, and South-South cooperation - an approach we can only hope to see prevail in today’s challenging context of constrained ambitions.

Faced with increasingly contradictory demands, Ksapa is committed to building holistic solutions that simultaneously advance climate resilience, social equity, and economic performance. A case in point is the IREN AGRI initiative, winner of the 2025 Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance in the Agriculture & Food Systems category, co-developed with the Société Générale Group and recently presented in Brazil. Combining access to finance, technical assistance, inclusive digitalization, and partnership-driven innovation, it brings together governments, businesses, NGOs, researchers, and solution providers to regenerate African agricultural value chains.

This embodies the path - admittedly a steep one - that we must unquestionably follow to ground environmental and social progress in tangible economic and operational realities.

We invite you to reach out and connect with the Ksapa team to discuss your challenges and goals in this shared endeavor!
 

Raphael Hara, Managing Director