COP has failed before the doors even opened.
“We cannot solve todays problems with yesterday’s thinking. Humanity will need a new operating system if we are to survive.” –Albert Einstein, updated for Generation NOW.
A flooded block looks like a sewer problem. Follow the water uphill and the picture changes. Rain hits roofs, runs across parking lots and rushes off paved streets before it ever reaches a pipe. A bigger pipe can help. So can giving the water places to soak in along the way. The moment you follow the water beyond the pipe, you find more people who can solve the problem and more places to act.
That’s a useful way to read the climate talks in Antalya. Follow an emissions pledge back through the permits, public budgets and energy systems that determine what actually gets built. By the time delegates arrive, many of the decisions that shape the outcome have already been made.
The old system is still doing its job
Many of the systems we rely on still carry the assumptions of the era that built them. Road budgets can reward moving more cars even when the public needs safer, more affordable ways to get around. A health service can treat asthma while housing agencies have to address mold and damp in the homes patients return to. The institutions can each do what their rules and budgets ask of them while the combined result leaves the problem in place.
Britain gave the Jackdaw gas field the green light in October. Weeks later at COP31, Prime Minister Andy Burnham reaffirmed the UK’s 2050 net-zero target and made the case for electrification. His government defended Jackdaw on energy security and jobs. That’s the design problem in one example. The old system still gives governments reasons to expand fossil fuel supply, even as their climate policies require the world to use less of it. Before COP31 opened, the Production Gap Report had already found that governments collectively planned to produce about 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. UK government’s Jackdaw announcement · Burnham’s COP31 speech · Stockholm Environment Institute
The same split showed up at October’s separate UN biodiversity summit in Armenia. DeSmog’s Rachel Sherrington, Clare Carlile and Brigitte Wear found that the public delegate list omitted company affiliations. After cross-checking older records, they identified 19 oil and gas delegates, two more than the combined delegations of Malaysia, Guyana and Haiti. Carbon Brief documented how language on reforming subsidies that harm nature weakened during the talks. Who gets into the room matters. So does what governments continue to pay for after everyone goes home. DeSmog’s investigation · Carbon Brief’s COP17 analysis
What whole-system design changes
Linear thinking assigns each problem to a department. The sewer agency handles overflow. The streets department handles pavement. The parks department handles trees. Each can meet its own targets while the same block keeps flooding.
Whole-system design starts with the outcome people need. For a flood-prone block, that means tracing where the water comes from, finding who controls the land and the pipes, and giving residents a say in where work starts. It also means budgeting for maintenance and measuring which blocks actually flood less.
Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters program puts that approach to work. The city uses rain gardens and tree trenches to capture runoff and upgrades its wastewater infrastructure to handle what still reaches the pipes. At its 2021 regulatory reporting milestone, the Philadelphia Water Department reported a 3.08 billion-gallon reduction in average annual combined sewer overflow. A citywide total measures progress across the system. Block-by-block results can show residents where more work is needed. Philadelphia Water Department program review · Philadelphia’s reported overflow reduction
Put Main Street in charge of what changes
On Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi, electricity customers are member-owners of the island’s utility cooperative, which has an elected board. It reported 52.8% renewable electricity in 2025 to the state regulator. The ownership model gives households and businesses a formal say in who oversees decisions about the grid they depend on. Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative · 2025 renewable electricity results
Wall Street can supply capital. International agreements can help move money where it’s needed. On Main Street, people need the power to decide what gets built, who benefits and who answers when it fails.
What you can do. Start with a problem your community keeps paying to fix. Bring together the people who live with it, the crews who maintain the infrastructure and the agency that controls the budget. Trace the problem beyond the first place it shows up. Then choose one change you can make together, name who will keep it working and set a date to show the community what improved.
Before the next COP, ask governments to do the same in public. Which permits, subsidies and budgets changed because of the promises they made? (If any…)
