In this new edie Extra podcast episode, published to coincide with Earth Day 2025, Gary Doran at insurance brokerage Lockton explains the practicalities of insuring projects for the energy transition – from large wind and solar farms to first-of-a-kind innovations.

Doran is partner at Lockton and head of Lockton’s London-based Energy and Power Team. He also 
 leads the European ESG Committee at Lockton. 

In this conversation with edie's content editor Sarah George, Doran explains how insurers create bespoke solutions to unlock financing for renewable energy ptojects and other energy transition infrastructure. The duo also explore how insurers are accounting for rapidly-evolving climate-related and technology-related risks.

#SustyTalk: What is the role of insurance in driving the energy transition?

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil. 

For this first episode, released Thursday 6 November 2025, we walk you through the timelines and key themes for this COP - from forests to finance. We also give you a who's who for this year's World Leaders Summit (6-7 November). 

Your special guest expert for this episode is Cathy Yitong Li, global climate & energy policy lead at BirdLife International. Cathy is also an advisor to the UN on environmental and climate justice. 

Your hosts are: 
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace 
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal 
- Springwise content editor Matilda Cox

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 1: Demystifying COP30 & what to expect from the World Leaders Summit

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

For this second episode, released Friday November 2025, we walk you through the timelines and key themes for this COP - from forests to finance. We also give you a who's who for this year's World Leaders Summit (6-7 November).

Your special guest expert for this episode is Ani Dasgupta, CEO of the World Resources Institute. He shares the Institute's learnings on the biggest gaps in existing national climate plans, and shares his big hopes for the summit in terms of nature and enabling a just transition.

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 2: Tropical Forests Forever funding & turning talk into climate action

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

This third episode, released Monday 10th November 2025, is all about climate adaptation. We bring you the day's biggest headlines and the takeaways from the UN's Adaptation Gap Report, which revealed a decrease in global funding between 2022 and 2023 - even as the costs of extreme weather events soared. 

Our Dr Ajam Gambhir, director of systemic risk assessment at ASRA.

ASRA was founded with a mission to help policymakers, business leaders and others to embed climate risk considerations into their decision-making processes. Such considerations should cover systemic and cascading risks.

Dr Ghambir answers questions including: 
- Is it too late to be funding emissions cuts - should we focus on adaptation instead?
- How can we scale up adaptation funding? 
- How can businesses improve their climate resilience planning?

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal
- Springwise commissioning editor Matthew Hempstead

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 3: Are we moving the needle on climate adaptation?

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

This third episode, released Tuesday 11 November 2025, focuses on the circular economy aspect of the COP. 

With UN-convened discussions to create a global plastics treaty having collapsed this summer, can COPs fill the void? Or is there another way forward? We ask our special guest, Michael Sadowski, executive director and board chair of The Circulate Initiative.

Also in this episode, we bring you the news in brief from Belem, including new NDCs and concerns over biofuel expansion.

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 4: New NDCs, Presidency handover and solving the plastic waste crisis

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

This fifth episode, released Wednesday 12 November 2025, focuses on the impact of the energy transition on people. 

Can young people expect to enter good, clean energy jobs? Why is it still challenging to finance renewables in low-income nations? And what's the role of philanthropy in improving energy access? 

We put these questions to our expert guest, Woochong Um, who is the CEO of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP). 

We also bring you the biggest headlines from the UN climate summit in brief, covering everything from China's presence to forest finance. 

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 5: Indigenous protests, the Africa COP and the just energy transition

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

This sixth episode, released Thursday 13 November 2025, focuses on tackling climate-related misinformation and disinformation. 

With the rise of AI deepfakes and with public trust in traditional information sources waning, information integrity has been added to the COP agenda for the first time. We explore what that means in practice with Maria Correa, advisor and spokesperson for Creatives for Climate.

Creatives for Climate says it takes a systemic approach to reducing the influence of big polluters on creative industries including TV, PR, print media and advertising. It works with more than 7,000 creatives worldwide on this imporant issue.

We also bring you the biggest headlines from the UN climate summit in brief, covering everything from the attendance of Indigenous groups to scuffles over agreements on the energy transition. 

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 6: Forest funding, fighting greenwashing and fossil fuel adverts

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

This seventh episode, released Friday 14 November 2025, focuses on closing the climate finance gap. 

Countries have already committed to providing $300bn of public climate finance a year, but have never achieved this pledge. Now, they want to lean on philanthropists and the private sector to reach $1.3trn per year by 2035. 

How can this vision be turned into reality? We ask our expert guest speaker, the Green Finance Institute's head of missions James Hooton.

We also bring you the biggest headlines from the UN climate summit in brief, covering new figures on fossil fuel lobbyists attending and shocking news about how past climate finance allocations have been directed.

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 7: Fossil fuel roadmaps, thousands of lobbyists and scaling green finance

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

It's Monday 17 November 2025 and we're officially into the second and final week of COP30!

We bring you the biggest headlines from the UN climate summit in brief, summarising the options that are on the table for the final agreements on reducing emissions and scaling climate adaptation finance. 

We also explain how - and why - businesses are getting involved in the COP.

Our special guest interview today is with COP29 High Level Champion Nigar Arpadarai. She made it her mission to get as many small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) to the COP in Baku last year, and is working with her counterparts in Brazil to keep building this legacy in 2025.

Your hosts are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- edie senior reporter Sidhi Mittal

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 9: Climate agenda fights and decarbonising small businesses

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team which will be keeping you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

Today’s news includes the UN’s latest update on global methane emissions, as well as a call to climate action from Pope Leo XIV.

We also explain the basics of the newest draft texts from the COP, which were published today in Belem by the organising team. They show there's still a long way to go to strike a final agreement on national emissions reduction plans, adaptation finance, and several other key issues. 

Given that the theme for today at the COP is forests and nature, our special guest interview is with Jack Hurd, head of the Earth System Agenda at the World Economic Forum. Jack is also executive director of the Tropical Forest Alliance.

Bringing his three decades of experience in sustainable development and forests, Jack shares his hopes for the COP – and his views on whether it could truly help to create a world where forests are seen as more valuable standing than chopped down.

Your hosts for this episode are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- Spingwise content editor Matilda Cox

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 10: Forest finance, methane emissions and the Pope’s climate message

Welcome to COP30 Covered - the daily podcast show from the award-winning edie team, hosted to keep you informed and inspired during the 2025 UN climate summit in Brazil.

In our news in brief section today (Wednesday 19 November), we look at the first official draft documents to have emerged as the COP30 organising team rushes to get an agreement over the line in time for Friday.

We also look at how today's themes, centred around agriculture, are shaping up. Are there delegates being served sustainable meals and snacks? And who are the industrial ag leaders using COP30 as a lobbying opportunity? 

Our special guest interview today is with Manuela Santos, Country Director for Brazil at the sustainable trade initaitve IDH. She dials in from Sao Paolo to share what she saw in Belem at the COP, and to share her learnings on collaboration for more sustainable food systems,

Your hosts for this episode are:
- edie content editor Sarah George
- edie editor Matt Mace
- Spingwise content editor Matilda Cox

Say hello: newsdesk@fav-house.com

Episode 11: Farmers, food systems and the fossil fuel roadmap

As more voices, businesses and initiatives pick up the conversation on the importance of tackling the climate crisis, this new page acts as a central home to edie's #SustyTalks and other upcoming special audio features.

Building on the success of edie’s long-standing Sustainability Uncovered podcast series, edie Extra is the place to find all the in-depth conversations with sustainability professionals about sustainability professionals.

From discussing the hot topics in sustainability space, to recounting the personal career journeys of green leaders, edie Extra is the one-stop location for all of edie’s extra multimedia content.

Whether you’re a business leader, climate expert, environmental professional, youth activist, or just someone with a passion for all things sustainability and climate action – this page is a must-have for your bookmarks to keep up to date with latest sustainability developments.

#SustyTalk: What is the role of insurance in driving the energy transition?

edie Extra

Related tracks