Ah, yes, climate summits. They’re the international events of the year, if staring down the barrel of environmental despair is your thing. But, if you have a more hopeful outlook on our society’s capabilities for combating climate change together, you’ll probably still tune in, hoping likely with some self-aware naivety that things may be, just maybe, will be different. This year’s COP30 summit is the United Nations’ 30th meeting of the “Conference of Parties” to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which aims to animate the spirit of international cooperation to achieve climate goals. As explained in a peer-reviewed paper from academics at MIT, “The climate is a complex dynamical system driven by multiple feedback processes, accumulations, time delays and nonlinearities, but research shows poor understanding of these processes is widespread, even among highly educated people with strong technical backgrounds.” Every country has a different definition of what a healthy and stable climate looks like, and what elements of socio-economic life for citizens and elites alike they’re willing to sacrifice to get there. Additionally, to spice up the drama, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, if you’re willing to believe it, aren’t going to reap the worst of its consequences.
Welcome to Earth – 2025 Edition
Let’s set the scene: In the big ‘two-five’, we’re set to reach a global record of 38.1billion tons of annual CO2 (GtCO2) emissions. Our natural carbon sinks (ex. plants, soil, oceans, etc.) are nearing capacity, or at least are failing to capture as much carbon as they have in previous decades. This is also contributing to the rise in atmospheric carbon. A warmer atmosphere as a result of greenhouse gases has led to higher atmospheric moisture retention, disrupting Earth’s normal precipitation patterns and worsening existing patterns of extreme weather like hurricanes. Once-in-a-century storms are occurring almost annually, putting coastal regions, especially those with destroyed or neglected sea barriers, at risk. Changing precipitation patterns mean some areas are getting more rain, while others will see increasingly severe drought conditions in the coming decades. Higher global temperatures also mean shorter winters for areas which normally receive them, and even hotter summers; especially for cities, where asphalt and other man-made materials absorb more heat than they reflect, creating a whole new meaning for the moniker “concrete jungle”.
Trends existing prior to COP30 point towards increasing urgency to decrease activities that lead to emissions or prevent carbon absorption in some countries. A UN analysis of global plans before the latest conference estimated our emissions would decrease by 12% from 2019 to 2035. Still, experts say we need to ramp up the efforts if we’re going to achieve a global warming that is sustained under a rise of two degrees Celsius. A global trend of decreasing deforestation is driven by a halved rate of forest removal in South America, but the continent remains the leader in deforestation. Experts say the measures carried out so far are not producing the results we need to halt and reverse the practice entirely by 2030. Despite some countries making strides in reorganizing their economic plans to make room for environmental measures, others are going about business as usual, or, inversely, giving the middle finger.
Before COP30, in September, President Trump gave a speech to the United Nations reiterating his administration’s belief that climate change is a hoax, and investing in measures to mitigate or adapt to climate change would be destructive to the US economy as well as any other nations that complied with the apparently ridiculous dogma of science. As a result of the Trump administration’s resistant stance to sustainability in any form of policy, there were no US representatives at the COP summit this year. While pro-climate politicians in the US voiced frustration with the administration’s stubborn stance on climate and declared it signified an ominous era of stagnation in financial sustainability efforts, COP30 officials noted the gaping American-shaped hole at the summit would provide more time and space for smaller, developing nations to speak.
What are the goals exactly?
The UN has an established list of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) as formulated in 2015 to achieve in some capacity by the year 2030, including aspirational achievements such as Clean Water and Sanitation, Sustainable Cities and Communities, Responsible Consumption and Production, and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. These goals are utilized as categories from which sustainable policies are organized to ensure, or at least consider, the socio-economic implications in a world riddled with economic inequality.
Environmental legislation is fashioned through considerations of many aspects, but if such policies are being crafted with mitigations or adaptations to climate change as the actual main concern (and not the demands of fossil fuel lobbyists and donors), the predicted effects of climate change, according to various scenarios, are utilized as guidelines for the types of futures various countries are and aren’t willing to face.
The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) through the collective work of economists, climate scientists, policy experts and more, have created five scenarios which map out various climate outcomes according to international government action and potential factors which may interrupt progress. For example, SSP1 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway) imagines a future where all countries immediately switch to renewable energy. This can be labelled as the “Sustainable Development” or “Idealist” scenario, where stakeholders who benefit from fossil fuels magically no longer have a say in political proceedings. The other scenarios explore vastly complex situations, though, where SSP2 is the “middle of the road” scenario, SSP3 is the “regional rivalry” scenario, SSP4 predicts that international inequality will inhibit effective climate mitigation measures, and SSP5 envisions a future where fossil fuel use actually grows from where it is today. It’s been predicted we’re currently on the track to establish an SSP2 envisioned world by 2100, where global temperatures are raised by 4.5 degrees. Climate scientists say that in order to avoid significantly harmful effects from climate change, we would have to keep global rising temperatures below a change of 2 degrees Celsius. At least, that was the goal of the Paris Agreement, as signed in COP21, but we don’t live in 2015 anymore. Seeing as SSP1 is the only model which predicts a 1.9 degree Celsius change at minimum, with 2.6 degrees being the median decided change, such a future without drastic climate change effects may be, at this point or definitely stated sometime soon, out of the question.
Of course, the means we have as a society to mitigate (remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere/limit and prevent further emissions) or adapt (create barriers between people and harmful effects, ex. creating more sea barriers and cooling centers) to climate change lie not only within the mess of bureaucratic proceedings, but some of the most effective measures are, unfortunately, unpopular policy. Establishing a carbon price, and additionally making it a high one, would be a miracle in reducing fossil fuel use. Unfortunately, a flat out carbon price applied without consideration for varying incomes across entities would inflict harm upon everyday consumers like you and me – not to mention for people in countries who have no hope of affording renewable energy on their own. It’s worth noting, though, some companies have been utilizing internally initiated carbon pricing for years, and the threat of government-imposed carbon prices may pressure companies to jump on that ‘green and efficient’ energy wagon before policy catches up with the times. Revenue from carbon taxes can flow back into social programs which help lower and middle class citizens, but in an age where the cost of living is already strangling the general population, adding extra costs in the name of a looming existential threat only adds fuel to the fire for climate denialism. When Donald Trump says making large investments for climate mitigation would ruin the economy, there’s a reason why people who are struggling to make ends meet are willing to believe him. Making all fossil fuels expensive across the board is also an unwise decision. Coal and oil, as they are, are decreasing in popularity. Most residents in the United States power their homes using natural gas, which is the ‘cleanest’ fossil fuel, and often labelled as an essential tool to rely on during a transition to renewables.
As demonstrated in the intuitive and transparent Climate Interactive En-Roads Simulator, created in collaboration with MIT, the climate mitigation techniques with the greatest capabilities to reduce global temperatures while minimally affecting a national budget are placing high taxes on coal (which is only mainly used by industries at this point), increasing energy efficiency for both transportation and powering buildings and industry (electrification is expensive and pointless if the energy grid is still powered by carbon), significantly growing nature-based solutions for carbon dioxide removal, and significantly reducing greenhouse gas emitting industrial waste and leakage.
Indigenous Voices
The UN chief noted at the beginning of the summit, their efforts to limit global warming stand to splinter in the face of factions in international consensus. The summit was purposefully hosted in Belem, the nation’s capital, and in close proximity to the Amazon rainforest territory to encourage native groups to participate through both protest and formal conversations. Indigenous groups from the Andes Mountains and several Central and South American countries shared their concerns; not only about the effects of rising global temperatures and changing weather patterns, but the natural resource extractions (or rather, overextractions) which occur on their land such as mining, logging, and oil drilling, are already disturbing their land and cultural practices. BBC reports indigenous folks are often attacked when they try to defend their land from encroaching ranchers or deforesters. Representatives of nations and tribes like the K’iche and Mapuche demanded greater autonomy over managing the territories already designated to them by name.
Various indigenous organizations were permitted to debate policy and sustainable practices in plenary sessions, which amplified members from various groups to share their concerns and demands for protecting their own territory. Despite a record number of permitted Indigenous participants, most of those present, such as the representatives of The Coalition of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), were not designated as official negotiators or political contributors to the Brazilian delegation.
Their main goals in relaying policy to Brazilian negotiators is to advocate for Indigenous ‘land demarcation’ as a climate policy – that is, protecting what natural land is left by handing it over to Indigenous peoples. In an attempt to subdue the demands from protestors amidst the summit, on Indigenous People’s day, Brazil designated 10 new indigenous territories, many located within regions of the highly coveted Amazon rainforest. Whether the Brazilian government will effectively enforce protections for existing native territories in addition to these new ones remains to be determined. Perhaps future climate conferences will promote true Indigenous protagonism and give the sovereign nations a right to negotiate for climate policy on their own terms.
So, What Happened?
Overall, coming down to summarizing the final decisions made at COP30, comparing and contrasting the seemingly productive issues discussed to the promises actually made provides a rather bleak story. Ultimately, the essential action of mitigating climate change via carbon emission reductions was ignored. The final agreements made, reportedly, no mention of fossil fuels, despite numerous countries and organizations asking the president of the conference to formulate a cohesive plan for nations to follow. What was created instead was a ‘voluntary’ plan countries could elect to follow out of their own volition. It is worth noting that reducing fossil fuel usage wasn’t named as a necessity until COP28 in 2023.
What was actually decided was a mixture of prioritizing deforestation measures and allocating funds, albeit minimally and haphazardly, for developing nations.
COP30 boasts the creation of a financial mechanism for funds to be allocated to countries who still heavily depend on fossil fuels to function, and would otherwise be bankrupted if they were forced to transition to renewable energy on their own meager budgets. The mechanism is currently not in use, yet, and requires further development before it can be predictively announced as operational at COP31 in 2026.
The summit also called for general increased funding for global climate adaptation. Wealthy countries will provide their capital to triple a global climate adaptation fund, which will in turn bolster protections for poorer countries who will need infrastructure changes in response to some of the worst predicted hot spots of climate change effects. However, the dispersal dates for the payments have been continuously pushed back, and it’s estimated the needs for investment by 2035 will be 12 to 14 times larger than what’s currently being set aside.
High and mighty words about establishing deforestation as a key and prominent policy measure during COP30 from the largest delegation present, Brazil, simply deflated by the end of the proceedings. Instead of establishing concrete demands for all countries to decrease logging and similar practices within their borders by a certain percentile, the summit produced a voluntary roadmap nations may follow, if they feel like preserving their forests. No pressure, though. Additionally, the rainforest protection fund spearheaded by Brazil’s President Lula fell short of its investment goals, spelling out trouble for meeting biodiversity and habitat protection goals.
Unfortunately, as Mindahi Bastida, an Otomí-Toltec member of A Wisdom Keepers Delegation put it, nature is still being seen as merchandise. Money is still the driving force that makes the world go round, and even if we theorize a utopian world where such corruption and destruction to nature is annulled by natural harmony, those musings are only going to be applicable if we apply idealistic visions to realistic solutions. It’s been theorized that petrostates like Saudi Arabia and Russia, in conjunction with fossil fuel lobbyists, are able to throw their weight around dreadfully significantly when it comes to pressuring decision makers to prevent taxation or any kind of limitation on fossil fuels. Additionally, these climate summits have recently been overwhelmingly hosted exclusively by ‘petro-states’, countries whose economies depend on their continued exports of oil or similar products. Azerbaijan hosted COP29 last year, the United Arab Emirates hosted COP28, and Egypt hosted COP27, perhaps accounting for the dastardly high attendance of fossil fuel lobbyists present. Next year’s COP31 will be hosted in Antalya, Turkey, where they notably import more gas and oil than they export.
Regardless of climate change, fossil fuels are only going to continue dwindling in quantity. Even the newer forms like natural gas come from finite reserves of early Earth compounds which take millions of years under heat and pressure to condense into the energy we use today. Transitioning our society to a diverse and therefore reliable portfolio of renewable energy grids is an inevitable development; we’re just put under a time crunch due to anthropogenic emissions and the resulting greenhouse gas effect.
Looking forward, it seems frustrations from this year’s COP may give rise to power for a more direct and effective international faction. Colombia, a major leader this year in demanding fossil fuel reductions, is set to co-host the first “International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels” with the Netherlands in late April 2026 in Santa Maria, Colombia. The conference will prioritize input from “government representatives, experts, rural and Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, civil society, climate advocates, industry leaders, and academia,” as described by the Earth Island Institute. Leaders from both nations have re-iterated the importance of reassessing countries’ compliance with The Paris Agreement, which Donald Trump once again removed the United States from upon re-entering office in January 2025.
Read more about past UN climate change conferences here.