CLIMATE CHANGE AND COP30: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

COP30, Belém, Brazil:

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Each year, after each round of the yearly climate change talks organised by the United Nations, I blog about climate change - see the first comment below for details of my previous blog posts about climate change.

This year's climate change talks (called COP30) in the Brazilian city of Belém have just ended, and so it's that time of year to go on about climate change again. This blog post, though long, will be divided into three parts, interspersed by images, to make it easy to navigate (or even skip a part). First, I'll give a recap of my argument about climate change; second; I'll note recent key developments about climate change; and third, I'll give an update about what was agreed or rather not agreed after the COP30 talks that have very recently concluded.

FIRST, here's my argument and observations about climate change:

1. There has always been climate change. The planet's climate has constantly and significantly changed over geological time. But what's different now is that climate change is largely driven not by so-called natural causes (like a meteor crashing into the planet or volcanic eruptions) but by human causes. Since the advent of industrialisation in mid-eighteenth century Europe and the spread of industrialisation from Europe to the rest of the world, humans have increasingly been the cause of climate change.

2. Industrialisation involved and still largely involves the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. With the burning of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is released into the atmosphere. This gas is a greenhouse gas in that it prevents heat from escaping into space. The planet thus warms up causing climate change. The situation is aggravated because humans are also deforesting the planet and trees consume CO₂ while releasing oxygen. There are other greenhouse gases like methane, but the emission of these other gases are also largely caused by human activity. The rearing of methane-producing cattle is another major cause of greenhouse gas-emissions in the world. Often the deforestation of rainforests in the Amazon, Borneo and the Congo, for example, is done to allow farmers to raise cattle. Deforestation is a double whammy!

3. The scientific evidence about climate change, and more exactly about how the planet is warming up and how humans are the main cause of such warming, is overwhelming in my opinion. Those who dispute this evidence, I suggest you look at the evidence collected and published by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Please have a rummage on the IPCC's website full of substantial evidence collected by the world's leading climate scientists. Also the websites of the European Union's Copernicus earth observation programme, Imperial College London's Grantham Institute and the World Meteorological Organization contain much scientific evidence about climate change. The BBC has compiled a great and short guide to climate change - see (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9w15nggj58o). There's massive scientific consensus about climate change from its measurement (of, say, global warming (both air and ocean temperatures), melting glaciers and ice sheets, rising sea levels, dying coral reefs, deforestation of rainforests and increasing frequency of extreme weather) to its causes (namely, human-driven emissions of greenhouse gases). People who deny climate change are historically and scientifically illiterate. Climate change deniers deny science. Only a few weeks ago on 23 September in his address to the United Nations' General Assembly, the US President Donald Trump declared that climate change is "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world". I have no time for climate change deniers, but I have time for climate change sceptics. Obviously scientific evidence needs to be scrutinised, interpreted and even challenged. But from where I'm standing, the only contested issues are about the pace of climate change and about what needs to be done to manage climate change.

4. There was a time, up to about ten years ago, that I thought the worst effects of climate change could be mitigated, meaning avoided, but I don't think that now. I now think that we can only adapt to climate change. A common objection from those who accept there's human-driven climate change is that it's costly to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Yes, it is costly. But it will be far more costly to do nothing. This was the conclusion of a study by the economist Nicholas Stern, commissioned by the British government, to look at the economic effects of climate change. His report found that climate change is an example of market failure and argued for government-imposed taxes on those who cause climate change and that the benefits of governments doing something about climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting - see the The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Economists, the so-called dismal scientists, now join the ranks of real scientists in recognising the problem of climate change.

5. What's been happening for quite a while now is that people's subjective experiences of climate change, or changing weather patterns, are increasingly aligned with the objective scientific evidence. We all now seem to notice unseasonal weather and even extreme weather. Storms, floods, droughts and wildfires are increasingly the norm nowadays. These increasing instances of extreme weather are known as "climate weirding" (a term coined by Hunter Lovins, the co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-partisan non-profit organisation set up to find solutions to the problems of climate change).

6. Climate change is an existential problem for humans and other animal species. Politicians urgently need to listen to scientists and take action to combat climate change.

Global Temperature Anomalies from 1890-1919 Average (source: Imperial College London's Grantham Institute):

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SECOND, here are recent key developments about climate change:

1. Last year was the hottest year on record with temperatures surpassing the 1.5°C target. 2023 was the hottest year until last year came along! I suspect this year's reading will be a depressing read.

2. In January this year, there were many destructive wildfires in California, especially in and around Los Angeles and San Diego.

3. On his first day of office in his second term, 20 January 2025, the US President Donald Trump signed an executive order initiating the process for America to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, an international climate change agreement. America has to give at least a year's notice before it can withdraw from the agreement. (Donald Trump signed such an executive order in his first term but it never came to much and the order was revoked by Joe Biden). The US President has also ordered federal government agencies to stop collecting CO₂ emissions data and, furthermore, he has slashed aid, including climate aid, given out by the US Agency for International Development (USAID, now absorbed into the US Department of State) to developing countries.

4. In July this year, despite opposition from developed countries, the highest international court, the United Nations' International Court of Justice, ruled that countries' governments can sue each other over climate change. The case was brought to the court by a group of law students from low-lying Pacific islands threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change. Though the court's ruling is advisory only, previous decisions of the court have been implemented by governments worldwide. This ruling may set a precedent for international climate crime cases.

5. Last year, renewable energy accounted for over 40 per cent of global electricity generation. The International Energy Authority is projecting the share of renewable energy to continue growing. Furthermore, the costs of renewable energy, particularly solar and wind power, have reduced significantly and are planned to further drop. The International Renewable Energy Agency found that just over 90 per cent of renewable energy sourced from new renewable projects are cheaper than non-renewable energy sourced from fossil fuels. However, though the use of renewable energy is growing rapidly, climate plans drawn up by countries' governments fall short of meeting the required 1.5°C target.

6. Rainforests are often regarded as carbon sinks because trees generally absorb CO₂ while emitting oxygen. But recent research, conducted by scientists of The Australia National University, found the tropical rainforests in Queensland are now net emitters of CO₂. But, because of climate change, there are now more tree deaths than growths in Queensland's rainforests.

7. The Pacific island country of Tuvalu has this year reached an agreement with Australia to gradually resettle its population as sea levels rise. This is the world's first organised national resettlement programme as a result of climate change. Fiji, another Pacific island country, has an ongoing resettlement programme within its borders as people living in coastal areas are being relocated to inland areas. Climate change-fuelled migration is increasing. There have already been climate change refugees in Bangladesh where people living in coastal areas fled the country to neighbouring countries.

8. Climate change deniers often like to point the finger at China as the biggest culprit of climate change. Yes, the country has emitted a lot of CO₂ because of its rapid industrialisation, but per capita both America and Canada emit far more CO₂ than China. China is leading the way in combatting climate change. Research, conducted by the University of Oxford's Hannah Ritchie, suggests that CO₂ emissions in China have perhaps peaked as it rolls out solar and wind power at a "staggering rate". China produces over 80 per cent of the world's solar panels, 70 per cent of the world's electric vehicles and over 60 per cent of the world's wind turbines. Just as Trump's America is banking on fossil fuels, China, according to Asia Policy Institute's Li Shuo, is "the world's clean-tech superpower".

9. Lastly, I just want to make a brief mention of developments in Britain. The Climate Change Act 2008, the world's first legally binding framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, stipulates that Britain seeks to be 'net zero' by 2050. However, as a result of a post-covid dash for growth, some government commitments have been watered down. For example, new licenses for drilling oil in the North Sea have been recently granted and more are planned to be granted, and targets for electric vehicles have been relaxed. There's evidence that British tourists are forsaking holidays in hot European countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey in favour of holidays in cooler European destinations. As a result of climate change, grapes are widely grown in Britain and English wines have even been awarded international awards. Very recently rice is now being grown in Britain as an experiment.

Global Surface Temperature Increase above Pre-Industrial (source: Health Policy Watch):

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THIRD AND LAST, here's a potted summary of what happened at COP30 starting off with a bit of history:

1. COP stands for the Conference of the Parties. Since 1995, there has been an annual COP summit organised under the auspices of the United Nations, with the exception of 2020 when the summit was cancelled because of covid. COP talks involve complex discussions between all governments worldwide, plus non-governmental organisations (eg international pressure groups, multinational companies) to make agreements to combat climate change. COP is a very elaborate talking shop as everyone is invited to participate, but it's designed to get consensus to tackle the problem of climate change. The reasoning behind COP is simple, without consensus amongst interested parties nothing can be done to combat climate change. Without such consensus, climate change will run amok. But it needs to said that the key players in the COP game are governments, especially a few governments - because of their economic and political power, the governments of America, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey are key players in the COP game. The origins of COP stem from the United Nations' Earth Summit, or to give its full name the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. This landmark conference embraced the idea of sustainable development and committed member countries to combat climate change. Soon after this UN summit meeting, COP1 was convened in Berlin, Germany in 1995.

2. Arguably COP21 has so far been the most important COP when 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 committing those countries' governments to keep global temperatures "well below" 2.0°C and "endeavour to limit" them to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels, and committing to limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally sometime between 2050 and 2100 temperatures. The Paris Agreement was a landmark climate change agreement. It also committed richer countries to provide "climate finance" to poorer countries.

3. Two key issues have emerged during the rounds of COP talks - the reluctance of rich countries to provide climate finance to poorer countries and the reluctance of countries' governments to wean themselves off fossil fuels. The climate finance issue is about climate justice. Rich countries have done most to cause climate change and are best able to manage the effects of climate change, whereas poor countries have done least to cause climate change and are least able to manage the effects of climate change. These two issues dominated COP30 talks.

4. Compared to last year's COP held in Azerbaijan, a petrostate, hopes were initially higher for CO30 held in Belém, Brazil because of the Brazilian government's commitment to halt the deforestation of the Amazon even though it destroyed thousands of acres of rainforest to build a new road to the Brazilian host city! (The talks themselves were carbon-neutral, excluding the CO₂ emissions from delegates travelling to the conference.) But hopes were soon dashed well before COP30 got going largely as a result of America's impending withdrawal from COP. Though Donald Trump didn't attend COP30, a low-level American delegation was sent no doubt to spy and block anything that threatened America's interests. Also some American state governments, companies and non-government organisations attended as interested parties. In his absence, Donald Trump was the elephant in the room throughout the COP30 talks. Fewer world leaders attended than in past COP summits - China's President, Xi Jinping, and India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi were also absent from the COP30 summit, which didn't reflect well on the political commitment of governments in tackling climate change. However, 194 countries sent government delegations to the COP30 talks.

5. Though COP30's proceedings were disrupted by protesters from Amazonian tribespeople demanding that "Our forests are not for sale" and then by a fire (not a wildfire) that led to over ten delegates requiring medical attention, the talks did conclude even if an extra day was needed. The big issues were climate finance and the reluctance of petrostates wanting a carbon-free economy. The European Union, plus Colombia, wanted a roadmap in which governments would commit themselves to phase out the use of fossil fuels by a certain date. This was strongly resisted by petrostates, which have a vested interest in the carbon economy. Led by Russia and Saudi Arabia, and no doubt emboldened by Trump's America's position, blocked this move. There are many petrostates in the world, those countries who export or rely on fossil fuels for energy. These or at least most of these petrostates are the blocking minority in COP talks. Also many countries, like America, Canada, China, India, South Africa and Turkey, are very reliant on fossil fuels to power their economies. This alliance was always going to be the problem with the talks, and so it proved. The idea of a carbon-free economy seems a distant dream. Perhaps as a sop, the petrostates allowed a limited climate finance deal to go ahead in the COP30 agreement.

6. The question remains, what has changed since the optimistic days of COP21 held in France, Paris? A lot. The massive consensus about tackling climate change involving scientists, politicians, business and the public has fragmented and maybe even shattered. The resistance of the many petrostates and those countries reliant on fossil fuels was always expected, but the election of Donald Trump as US President, on a "drill, baby, drill' platform, has tipped the balance. Trump's MAGA, scientifically illiterate and even deliberately scientifically illiterate for the sake of propaganda, has a lot to answer for. I guess climate change isn't affecting America!

7. After the Paris Agreement, signed in 2025 and which came into force in 2016, I was cautiously optimistic but now I'm very pessimistic. The climate change can is just being kicked down the road. The United Nations' Secretary-General António Guterres admitted that "overshooting" the 1.5°C target is inevitable. But the hopeful and sometimes naive optimist I am, I'm relieved that at least the COP show is still on the road. It's the hope that kills sometimes but at least I won't be alive when climate change does its worst. Without Trump's America, it's all down to China and Europe now.

8. Next year's COP, COP31, will be held in Antalya, Turkey even though Adelaide, Australia was due to host the talks in Turkey, though Australia will still preside over the talks. Why did coal-exporting Australia allow coal-importing Turkey to host next year's COP talks albeit under Australia's leadership? Call me cynical, was a coal trade deal done? What can go wrong next year with COP31?!

Protesters disrupting COP30 talks:

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