Sunday Quick Cuts & Power Lines

Reading, Watching, Listening, Quoting

Welcome back to Wicked Problems. The climate tech newsletter and show some people are saying goes down easier than mulled wine and is more fortifying than a morning eggnog.

Big week just gone. If you’re COPped out, you’re not alone. And whether your thought it was time to get miserable or you found reasons for optimism probably depends on what you think COPs are for.

If you expected Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States - never mind Guyana, Bolivia, Uganda, Malaysia, and Brazil - to announce plans to strand their fossil fuel assets, you were disappointed. But if you came in expecting Olympic Greenwashing, you certainly got that, and if you also think that COP climate agreements are a lagging indicator, you probably came away less depressed than you expected to be.

Though watching the COP28 president’s company wait less than 24 hours before boasting to Fiona Harvey and the Guardian of their $150 Billion investment in oil and gas probably sat uncomfortably, as did oil & gas bible U…