Belém’s balance – why COP30 was a loss, a win, and a warning…
Welcome to 2025’s final Temperature Check. The moment that wasn’t Ten years after Paris, COP30 in Belém was billed as the “COP of implementation,” a moment of truth hosted in the Amazon where climate urgency meets geopolitical reality. The result was a managed compromise. There was progress on justice, finance, and forests, but a failure […]
Temperature Check: COP30 – Edition 2
Belém’s climate crossroads – the heat is on. Welcome back to Temperature Check, Portland’s annual COP newsletter. COP30’s second week in Belém is a make-or-break moment for global climate action. Week 1 brought historic pledges, the Loss and Damage Fund’s first project window, methane finance breakthroughs, and Indigenous-led protests, but deep divisions over finance, fossil […]
Portland’s Guide to the 69th Commission on the Status of Women
Hello and welcome to Portland’s analysis of this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), brought to you by our team of international development and gender equality experts. CSW69, despite the bleakest outlook for gender equity progress in recent years, can be seen as a qualified success. On the surface, the conference delivered headline […]
Women Deliver 2023: Spaces, Solidarity and Solutions
In the heart of Africa, Rwanda is a country of hills, mountains, forests, lakes – and a few weeks ago, it was the host of this year’s Women Deliver Conference. Taking place in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, and for the first time ever on the African continent, I was delighted […]
Andrew Mitchell rebrands UK aid spending – now can he bring the public with him?
There’s never a dull moment when it comes to our charismatic International Development Minister, Rt Hon Mr Andrew Mitchell MP, who laid out a bold new vision for the future of British overseas aid in a powerful speech at Chatham House yesterday. One of his key messages was the renaming of UKAid to UK International […]
Funding global health into the future
With a new UK Prime Minister whose views on international development are little known, plus an impending fiscal event in which every budget is at risk of being cut, a conference on funding international development and global health this week was well-timed. The Devex ‘Future of Development Finance’ conference saw private sector, philanthropic and civil […]