Climate Week confronts geopolitical hurdles

• He said the solar surge is among his reasons for optimism.
• But he also called for big changes in the rules at UN climate talks, reflecting wider concerns that COP summits have too many choke points.

Driving the news: Gore tells Axios the UN secretary-general should gain some power to choose which nations host the summits and who runs the talks.

• And every outcome should no longer require unanimous decisions among all countries.
• "The decisions the world needs to make are tough enough that getting unanimity is just unrealistic," Gore said.

How it works: Currently regional groupings of countries make location decisions, which brings geopolitical wrangling into the mix.

• November's upcoming COP in Azerbaijan will be the second of three consecutive summits hosted by major oil producers.
• It follows last year's UAE summit and 2025 talks slated for Brazil.
• "It's really ridiculous," Gore said.

Reality check: Former U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, speaking at the same event, said COPs need "some reshaping."

• But he cautioned: "The same problems that have produced outcomes that people aren't satisfied with, the same problems are going to make getting that transformation very difficult."

Friction point: Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv Shah told Axios there's a geopolitical reluctance as elections near for countries to pledge new, major climate finance and other commitments.

"I think everybody is absolutely holding their breath and saying, in every single election across this planet, is it going to be more populist withdrawal from global cooperation?

• "Or is it going to be understanding that actually we're safer and more secure and we're living in on a planet that's habitable if we make these investments in a smart way abroad?" Shah said at Axios House.
• However, Shah said momentum can be seen via government and nonprofit partnerships, such as a $90 billion initiative with the World Bank that Rockefeller announced late last week. It seeks to bring renewable electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030.

Yes, but: The stasis on display at the climate summits masks deeper economic and political rifts, Susana Muhamad, Colombia's minister for environment and sustainability, said in an interview with Axios.

• She is chairing a separate UN process to negotiate a new biodiversity agreement in Calí, Colombia next month.

Zoom in: Reforming the COP process won't work without addressing the power of the global fossil fuel industry and other interests, she said.

• "I don't think the problem is the COP process," she said. "The problem is the vested interests and the economic interests which actually become explicit at the COP process," she said, citing how decisions are made at those meetings.
• "If we have an iceberg, the COP is only the symptom, only the visible part, but what's underneath? And that's what's the power structure," she said.

What we're watching: Pre-COP negotiations and positioning at the UN General Assembly this week, which centers in large part on raising new and sizable climate finance commitments to help developing countries withstand climate impacts.

Go deeper: Full Kerry interview...Full Gore interview...Full Shah interview