When the Weather Upstages the Climate Agenda
The COP summit in Brazil was derailed by actual weather — a perfect metaphor for a process so focused on 2050 that it tripped over 2025.
“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” —Groucho Marx
A few years back, our small startup was swallowed by the sustainability arm of one of the world’s mega-cap tech companies. When the ink dried, I flew to our Haifa office for the obligatory week of meetings—the kind where the new owners arrive to “assess the asset” while subtly reminding you how fortunate you are to bask in their glow.
The hierarchy hit the room before they did. Perfect posture. Curated smiles. That unmistakable we see farther than you energy. It was the moment I learned what imposter syndrome looks like… just not on my end of the table.
One guy stood out: he hauled an enormous black valise into the conference room, the kind of bag you bring when the next destination matters more than this one. I asked what was inside.
He grinned. “Oh, I’m heading straight from here to COP in Sharm el-Sheikh. Going scuba diving.” He said it like he was mentioning a grocery run.
That’s when I saw he was wearing sandals — to a business meeting! — and everything snapped into focus. There was no tattoo in sight, but I’d wager there was a “deeply personal but strategically visible” one somewhere.
The whole package screamed curated virtue.
Note that, like everyone, I’ve got pet peeves.
Uptalking. Leading with “so.” Ending with “you know what I mean.” And the latest entry on the list: grown men showing up to business meetings with their (hairy) toes out.
So, it’s a lot. You know what I mean?
It was my introduction to a pattern I keep seeing: a branch of the sustainability world obsessed with optics, lanyards, and conference selfies… and noticeably less obsessed with the hard, unglamorous execution work that actually matters.
That moment came back to me this week.
Because the cool-kid gathering he was so excited to attend — COP — just delivered a moment of unintentional clarity: the conference in Brazil was disrupted by … bad weather.
Actual weather.
The Wall Street Journal spelled it out: torrential rain, flooded roads, transportation breakdowns, delegates stranded, sessions delayed. The world’s premier climate summit was derailed not by geopolitics or protests, but by the atmosphere itself.
It’s ironic—and utterly revealing.
I believe in long-term climate planning; governments, companies, and society need it. But there’s a critical difference between planning for 2050 and ignoring 2025. That dynamic feels like the same energy I saw in Haifa: a global culture heavy on choreography, status, and signaling, and woefully light on operational rigor.
The truth is simple: weather still runs the show.
Not the models, not the speeches, not the communiqués. Just the daily, hourly, stubborn reality of the atmosphere—flooding streets, scrambling logistics, disrupting supply chains, and apparently even knocking a global climate conference off its axis.
The supreme irony of a climate summit being blindsided by the very force it’s meant to prepare the world for is the real lesson: if the weather of the present can surprise the people designing the climate future, what chance does everyone else have?
Mike Tyson had it right: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Daily weather is that punch. Subtle, relentless, and always landing sooner than you expect. The real world doesn’t break on the long-term plan; it breaks on the next 24 hours.
This isn’t cynicism; it’s a critique of priorities. What if COP and the institutions around it shifted even a fraction of their energy from performative commitment to operational competence? From signaling to doing?
I keep coming back to that guy in the sandals — strolling into our meeting on his way to COP, radiating confidence, unbothered by the details. I wonder if he made it to Brazil this year. And whether he was rocking those same sandals. If so, he may have accidentally demonstrated something COP did not: good planning for bad weather.