Laura Crane

At COP30 with Laura Crane

In November 2025, Laura joined climate leaders from around the world at the United Nations’ thirtieth global conference on climate change, COP30, in Belém, Brazil. This annual event brings together government leaders, scientists, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and climate activists from nearly every country on Earth to negotiate goals for tackling climate change, present plans for contributing to these goals and report on global progress. 

Laura shared a few highlights and reflections from her time at the conference, including how California can continue to show up as a leader in fighting climate change and making the state more resilient. 

TNC: Tell us about COP30! What were some of the highlights of your time there?

Laura: Working to address climate change is hard, and in this particular moment in time, it can feel overwhelming, especially because much of the progress to fight climate change at the federal level in the United States has been rolled back. Attending COP30 provided a tremendous contrast in perspective and a welcome sense of energy and momentum. I was honored to be a part of the TNC delegation attending COP30. I had the chance to meet with TNC colleagues from all over the world and learn more about the great climate work that’s happening across different regions. Being a part of a global organization and being able to exchange ideas with such a diverse group of leaders was incredibly valuable. 

It was also inspiring to see California show up to the conference in such a strong way. Leaders from the state and local level came to COP30 with a clear message: California will continue to be a strong partner in tackling climate change. I left feeling energized and confident in our ability to create a more climate-resilient future. 

Getting to see the Amazon rainforest was a personal highlight for me. One morning, a few colleagues and I met at 5am to go for a canoe ride into the rainforest. Being able to experience such an important ecosystem up close was a really special experience. Holding this year’s COP in Belém, at the gateway to this incredible natural environment, underscored the important role nature plays in fighting climate change.  

TNC: During COP30, you hosted a panel with climate leaders from Brazil and California on the importance of nature-based climate solutions. What were some of your takeaways from this conversation?

Laura: I was part of a fantastic panel focused on the importance of climate progress at the state and local level. Joined by government leaders from Brazil and California, we discussed the work being done to advance nature-based climate solutions, the challenges we’re facing and how we can build more connections with local communities to implement these solutions. 

One of the foundational learnings in both California and Brazil that was highlighted during the panel was that the knowledge and experience of local communities, including existing stewards of the land and in particular Indigenous communities, is absolutely critical if we want to make tangible and lasting progress in the fight against climate change. Nature-based climate solutions, such as protecting, managing and restoring land, are implemented on the ground in the communities that have a deep connection to place. We have an opportunity in California to deepen our work with Indigenous communities and ensure that their perspective and experience is at the forefront of our climate resilience and mitigation work. 

TNC: How do you see TNC California’s climate work, as well as work being done in California more broadly, fitting into global climate resilience efforts?

Laura:

What struck me was how important it is that we continue to make progress on climate mitigation and resilience in California. We've already made huge strides in deploying renewable energy and investing in nature to absorb carbon and improve California's resilience, but so much more is needed. We need to keep innovating— around finance, policy, technology, land use and restoration solutions to name a few— so that the state can meet its ambitious climate targets. California has a spot on the world’s stage, and the work we do here can set an example for the rest of the world. 

TNC: At a time when climate work is facing significant resistance, what inspires you to continue in this work?

Laura: Sometimes it can feel like we’re moving backwards, so it was refreshing to see how much forward movement is still happening on a global scale. There are so many amazing people working on climate solutions, not just in California, but across the world. Spending a week surrounded by people who are making real progress towards a more climate-resilient future was incredibly inspiring. 

TNC: Any parting thoughts?

Laura: On my day off, I found myself at a local botanical garden in Belém. As I was walking through the garden, I looked up and spotted a wild sloth in the tree. The sloth came down from its branch and spent a long time staring at us. 

I later learned that this sort of encounter is rare. It was so thrilling and an excellent reminder that no matter where I am, the magic of observing nature is always a treat! 

Visit Science for Conservation for a full list.

Mojave Desert Ecoregional Assessment

John M. Randall, Sophie S. Parker, James Moore, Brian Cohen, Laura Crane, Bill Christian, Dick Cameron, Jason B. Mackenzie, Kirk Klausmeyer, Scott Morrison

Regional conservation planning is critical to inform land and resource use decisions. The Mojave Desert Ecoregional Assessment represents an important advance in such planning, because of how its output  characterized not just areas of high conservation value, but how conservation values distributed and graded across the whole of the planning area. The resulting maps better support land use decisions, such as how best to site and mitigate the impacts of renewable energy development.

Identification of potentially suitable habitat for strategic land retirement and restoration in the San Joaquin Desert

H. Scott Butterfield, Rodd Kelsey, Abigail Hart, Tanushree Biswas, Mark Kramer, Dick Cameron, Laura Crane, Erica Brand

California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) established a framework for sustainable, local groundwater management. SGMA requires groundwater-dependent regions to halt overdraft and bring basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. As a result, agricultural land retirement is on the rise in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s largest agricultural region and home to the state's highest concentration of threatened and endangered species. In this assessment, The Nature Conservancy introduces the concept of strategic land retirement and restoration, an approach which seeks to help recover San Joaquin Valley threatened and endangered species by restoring agricultural land that is suitable as habitat and under threat of retirement. The authors identify 2.5 million acres of current agricultural lands that have high potential for restoration, 14% of which was fallowed at least once during the most recent drought. 

Integrating Land Conservation and Renewable Energy Goals in CA: A study of costs and impacts using the optimal renewable energy build-out model

The Nature Conservancy: Erica Brand, Laura Crane, Dick Cameron, Energy and Environmental Economics: Grace C. Wu, Nick Schlag

Integrating ecological data into long-term energy planning is critical to meet both California’s long term energy and conservation goals. This report assesses the potential trade-offs associated with renewable energy build-out by evaluating the land and water use implications and cost of a range of potential 2030 renewable energy scenarios. In addition, the Executive Summary provides an overview of the analysis, key findings and policy recommendations from The Nature Conservancy. 

Solar Energy Development and Regional Conservation Planning

D.R. Cameron, L. Crane, S.S. Parker, J.M. Randall

This book chapter discusses how California's greenhouse gas emission reduction goals spurred solar development in the Mojave Desert—development that could have negative impacts if poorly sited. The authors discuss their wall-to-wall assessment of conservation values across the 32-million-acre Mojave Desert, and their estimation of how much solar energy could be developed on previously-disturbed lands. These analyses demonstrated that California could meet energy production goals without developing areas most important for biodiversity. The authors discuss how their findings influenced the permanent protection of 6.5 million acres through California’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan.

Solar Energy Development in the Western Mojave Desert

Cameron, D., S. Parker, B. Cohen, J. Randall, B. Christian, J. Moore, L. Crane, S. A. Morrison

Industrial-scale renewable energy generation facilities can have sizable footprints and therefore significant impact on the conservation values of a landscape. This assessment focused on a region experiencing intense development pressure, the western Mojave Desert, to highlight how facilities could be sited to have lower impact on the conservation values of the broader landscape. Further, the authors describe a comprehensive mitigation program that could potentially produce a net improvement to the conservation status of species and habitats.

Western San Joaquin Valley Least Conflict Solar Energy Assessment

Butterfield, H.S., D. Cameron, E. Brand, M. Webb, E. Forsburg, M. Kramer, E. O’Donoghue, L. Crane

A Conservancy analysis of the western Mojave Desert identified where human activities had degraded the conservation value of lands making them potentially low impact locations for development of solar facilities. In this assessment authors applied that same approach in the Western San Joaquin Valley—an area with high value conservation resources but also extensive cropland—to incorporate agricultural conservation values into the evaluation of potential conflicts with energy development and ultimately help shape the long-term energy development future in the region.