Nature Nate is back for his take on COP30 in Belém, Brazil!. COP30 (November 10-21, 2025) has just wrapped up. Nate shares thoughts on COP30, with a recap on his attending Climate Week NYC 2025.

The geopolitical context of COP30 was front and center. The billion-dollar shortfall in the UN budget and the near-empty Loss and Damages Fund presented a major challenge.

The U.S. had pulled out of COP, but it’s not all bad news. Instead of participating on a federal level, 24 individual states representing 54% of the nation’s GDP have remained committed. This year, China has stepped forward with the largest delegation. It’s driving the EV revolution and creating financial realities that have led to the lowest-ever prices for wind, solar, and batteries.

There’s still a lot of work ahead. While the world currently possesses all the necessary tools and technologies to stop climate change at an effective price point (heat pumps, EVs, cheap renewables, energy storage), new challenges are arising. A major new complication is the drastically growing energy use of AI. This pressure is complicating carbon targets, with companies like Microsoft potentially missing net-zero goals, and is incentivizing the prolonged use of gas and coal plants to meet the new compute demand.

Plus, cool stories from Climate Week NYC, including Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, and an Australian mining company committed to "real zero" (and no carbon offsets).

(The episode was recorded on November 20, when countries still yet to reach a consensus on mapping out the “roadmap” to phase out fossil fuel.)

This is Waste Not Why Not, a climate podcast from Ghost Island Media. It's hosted by Nature N8 (Nate Maynard), a sustainability consultant working on energy, ocean, and waste.

Support us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/wastenotwhynot
Follow us on Twitter @wastenotpod

EPISODE CREDIT

Nate Maynard (@N8May), Host
Emily Y. Wu (@emilyywu), Producer
Wayne Tsai, Audio Editing
Zack Chiang, Production Assistant
Show logo by Southwicks Graphics
Theme tune by Dac Chang

A Ghost Island Media production (@ghostislandme)

Support the show: https://patreon.com/wastenotwhynot

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One fine day in December 2018, Nate Maynard and Emily Y. Wu met over a coffee in downtown Taipei. The two talked about podcasting and sustainability. By Christmas, Nate, Emily, and Emily (Pearson) had recorded the first episodes of “Waste Not Why Not”.

“Waste Not Why Not” - a sustainability podcast - was the first original show from Ghost Island Media. It debuted on Earth Day in 2019. Since then, it’s been a media partner at the 2020 AAAS Annual Meeting (American Association for the Advancement of Science), a program partner of the American Institute in Taiwan, and received support from Cypress River Advisors.

We remember interviewing incredible guests:

Season One included Daniel Vickery, then-head of engineering of batteries and energy systems at Gogoro (maker of the world’s first nation-wide electric grid for electric vehicles); Sam Kimmins, then-head of RE100 from The Climate Group; Taiwanese youth climate activist Liang-Yi Chang; and Dr. Nebojsa Nakicenovic (IIASA) on radical change.

Season Two included Dr. Jane Lubchenco, former head of NOAA; Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Bristol on science denial and disinformation; Christine Bader, former head of CSR at Amazon and BP; and Dr. Enric Sala, National Geographic explorer-in-residence.

We visited a food lab (thank you, Mattson in California!), a coral lab (thank you Shashank Keshavmurthy at Academia Sinica in Taiwan!), a batteries R&D center (thank you, Antonio Baclig at Stanford University!), a garage of new electric dirt bikes (you rock, Azizi Tucker!).

In Season Three and Four, we walked about solar energy, climate simulation, sustainable menstrual products, green buildings, COP, and we even did a game show.

Thank you to all our listeners and supporters who rooted for us in the past five years. Waste Not Why Not has come to an end (for now!)

Nate Maynard now continues his podcasting career at NETTING ZEROS, a new project Nate launched with David Green. Here’s the show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/netting-zeros/id1739098029

Here’s the show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7uEIMDGgCduymAekSiV7zD

Check them out on Substack: https://nettingzeros.substack.com/about

As for Ghost Island Media, we continue producing podcasts and publishing. Please check out our other shows at www.ghostisland.media

EPISODE CREDIT

Host: Nate Maynard (Nature 8, @N8May), a sustainability consultant working on energy, ocean and waste.

Producer: Emily Y. Wu (@emilyywu), executive producer and founder of Ghost Island Media.

Audio Packaging by Wayne Tsai
Show logo by Southwicks Graphics
Theme tune by Dac Chang
A Ghost Island Media production (@ghostislandme)

Support the show: https://patreon.com/wastenotwhynot

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For this final part of our COP28 mini-series, Nature N8 attends his last day at COP28. He chats with Tanmatra Bhanti, Manager of Policy & Partnerships at Rare, and Alfredo M Coro II, Municipal Mayor of the Municipality of Del Carmen, Siargao Islands in the Philippines.

Nature N8 gives his final thoughts at COP. What is it for, who is it for, what's achieved there, and what's greenwashing in today's climate conversations?

This is Waste Not Why Not, a climate podcast from Ghost Island Media. Debuted on Earth Day in 2019, it's hosted by Nature N8 (Nate Maynard), a sustainability consultant working on energy, ocean and waste.

Support us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/wastenotwhynot
Follow us on Twitter @wastenotpod

EPISODE CREDIT
Nate Maynard (@N8May), Host
Gerald Williams, Audio Editing
Show logo by Southwicks Graphics
Theme tune by Dac Chang

A Ghost Island Media production (@ghostislandme)

Support the show: https://patreon.com/wastenotwhynot

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.