October and November were marked by the failure of two top global environment summits: COP16 – the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and COP29 – the UN climate conference, both focusing on finance which is desperately needed for nature preservation and for mitigating climate change. We asked the EESC representatives at this year's COPs – Peter Schmidt, Diandra Ní Bhuachalla and Arnaud Schwartz – to share their thoughts on what is at stake if the world fails to act on climate.