Paris agreement, ten years later
N°13 - November 2025
As world leaders gather in Belém for COP30 and the Paris Agreement turns ten, this edition reveals a persistent gap between climate pledges and delivery.
Lisa Vanhala reports the anniversary exposes how the flexibility that enabled cooperation now prevents action, with warming projections stagnating at 2.5-3°C as the bottom-up approach allows minimal targets whilst oil companies face no binding limits. The World Economic Forum shows 37% of 11,000 businesses cite energy costs as barriers to green models, while over half worry about consumer affordability threatening ambition.
Yet capital reveals unexpected dynamics. Molly Taft documents local opposition blocking nearly $100B in data center projects during Q2 2025 as communities challenge resource consumption, yet this resistance drives tech giants toward renewables. Caroline Mignon reports climate funds surged over 50% in 2025 as AI electricity demand pushes Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon toward clean power, with transition spending reaching $2T annually. er projects during Q2 2025 as communities challenge resource consumption despite industry growth claims.
Venture capital reveals its own contradictions. PitchBook reports US VC returns at dismal 3.1% IRR with negative cash flows since 2022, yet valuations hit new highs driven by AI competition. Trevor Clawson shows Ada Ventures identified universal founder success traits, yet female-led UK companies received just 2% of 2024 funding as pattern-matching persists.
New frameworks emerge to measure what matters. Florence Santrot reports California launched America’s first Non-UPF certification as 55% of US calories come from ultra-processed foods costing $50B annually in healthcare. Phoebe Weston documents Finnish kindergartens proving forest floor exposure strengthens children’s immune defences within 28 days.
The Graph of the Week shows 800M people use ChatGPT weekly, with responses beginning “yes” ten times more often than “no”. Perhaps reflecting our desire for affirmation over accuracy.
We hope this curation will drive your own reflections and actions. Please feel free to share it with those who might be interested.
Let’s dive in! 💫
Insights
Caroline Mignon 🇫🇷 reports climate investment funds achieved exceptional performance with S&P Clean Energy Index surging over 50% in 2025, as AI’s soaring electricity demand drives major tech companies toward renewable energy. Les Échos analysis shows energy transition spending reached $2 trillion annually according to BloombergNEF, with Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon prioritizing clean power for data centers despite Trump administration climate policy reversals, whilst fund assets hit record $644B though portfolios track toward 2.2-2.4°C warming rather than Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. | Les Échos - FINANCE - Climate investment fund
PitchBook & Morningstar 🇺🇸 announce Q1 2026 launch of Morningstar PitchBook US Evergreen Fund Indexes tracking semiliquid funds as US assets near $450B and project to surpass $1T by decade’s end. The report introduces 10 benchmarks in asset-weighted and equal-weighted formats covering interval funds, tender-offer funds, nontraded BDCs, and REITs across private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure, and multi-asset strategies, addressing a market gap as wealth channel trillions flow into private markets whilst existing public benchmarks fail to capture evergreen funds’ intermittent liquidity structures and standard private indexes track drawdown funds or gross returns limiting comparability. | PitchBook - FINANCE - Evergreen
PitchBook 🇺🇸 reports that US venture capital returns remain dismal with rolling 1-year IRR at just 3.1%, negative cash flows to LPs since 2022, and 2020 vintage funds posting the worst five-year performance since 2010. Yet median pre-money valuations hit new highs across all stages driven by AI competition, creating a disconnect where poor historical returns coexist with elevated pricing that resembles 2021’s market frenzy, raising concerns that today’s valuations require future returns current performance suggests are unlikely to materialise. | PitchBook - VC
Trevor Clawson 🇬🇧 reports Ada Ventures’ psychometric study of 172 unicorn founders reveals successful entrepreneurs share low anxiety levels, analytical thinking, and collective “we” language patterns that transcend gender, ethnicity, and social class. Yet despite identifying these universal success traits, female-led UK companies received just 2% of 2024 funding, exposing how VCs continue relying on pedigree-based pattern-matching rather than indicators that actually predict success. | Forbes - VC - Founder
Molly Taft 🇺🇸 reports local opposition to data centers exploded in Q2 2025, with Data Center Watch documenting a sharp escalation as communities blocked or delayed projects worth nearly $100B in just three months. The analysis shows bipartisan political backlash emerging, with Democrat Peter Hubbard winning Georgia’s Public Service Commission seat citing constituent concerns about data centers consuming water, electricity, and land while driving utility rate increases, as Virginia communities successfully challenge developments including an Atlanta project halted by 180-day moratorium, despite industry claims of substantial tax contributions and job creation. | WIRED - Data Center Backlash
World Economic Forum🇨🇭 reports 37% of 11,000 businesses cite high energy costs as barriers to green models, while over half worry about consumer affordability threatening climate ambition. Written with McKinsey, the report identifies six transition pathway archetypes and presents a framework for integrating socioeconomic factors into corporate plans, with case studies from SSE, Maersk, and Vale showing how companies embed equity and resilience into transition strategies to ensure green shifts drive shared prosperity rather than divided progress amid inflation and supply chain fractures. | World Economic Forum - GREEN TRANSITION
Sweep 🇫🇷 present five expert recommendations for managing climate risk as World Economic Forum reports climate threats to 5-25% of corporate EBITDA. The guide features IPCC author François Gemenne advocating dependency mapping and cascading scenario tests, UNEP FI’s David Carlin calling for climate risks to be quantified like financial risks with Climate P&L tracking, and former French Minister and Sweep Chief of Impact Julien Denormandie urging companies to treat resilience as competitive advantage through quick wins and climate ROI monitoring, whilst emphasising supply chain collaboration across Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers through shared platforms and training rather than one-off compliance exercises. | Sweep - CLIMATE
Phoebe Weston 🇬🇧 reports Finnish kindergartens receiving €1M to rewild yards found children exposed to forest floor biodiversity showed reduced disease-causing bacteria and stronger immune defences within 28 days, with blood samples revealing increased T regulatory cells protecting against autoimmune diseases. The Guardian analysis shows 75 children across 10 urban daycare centres playing in soil, moss, and wild plants developed healthier gut microbiota with reduced Clostridium bacteria linked to inflammatory bowel disease, supporting the “old friends” hypothesis that early microbial exposure from air, plants, and soil strengthens immune systems, as the model spreads to Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. | The Guardian - PUBLIC HEALTH
Florence Santrot 🇫🇷 reports California launched America’s first Non-UPF certification to help consumers identify products that aren’t ultra-processed, as 55% of US calories now come from ultra-processed foods costing the healthcare system $50B annually. Dietitian Melissa Halas created the label to fill a regulatory gap where the FDA hasn’t defined “ultra-processed food,” with eight in ten Americans saying they consider processing levels when shopping, though most cannot define what ultra-processed means, while Europe lacks equivalent certification despite research documenting health risks. | We Demain - FOOD
Lisa Vanhala 🇬🇧 argues the Paris Agreement’s flexibility that enabled cooperation now prevents action, as warming projections stagnate at 2.5-3°C and emissions continue rising with CO2 reaching record levels in 2024. The analysis shows the bottom-up approach lets countries set minimal targets whilst major oil companies face no binding limits despite producing more emissions than most nations, with the $250M loss and damage fund representing a tiny fraction of the $200-400B developing countries need annually by 2030, prompting calls for new enforcement mechanisms including a UN climate council and expanded climate litigation. | The Conversation - CLIMATE - Paris Agreement
Graph of the week
The Washington Post analysed 47,000 publicly shared ChatGPT conversations to understand how its 800 million weekly users interact with the chatbot. The study reveals the deeply intimate role it plays in many people’s lives. One striking detail: ChatGPT begins its responses with variations of “yes” ten times more often than with versions of “no”, an indicator of its natural tendency towards acquiescence rather than contradiction.
