The United Nations COP30 climate summit is drawing to a close in Belém, Brazil. Despite delegations attending from 197 countries, this conference will be defined by one notable absence: Trump’s USA. With the consensus on the need for climate action breaking down, questions are being asked about the future of the COP process, and how we can protect the planet going forward.
Last year, I was an Official Observer at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan interviewing politicians, NGO leaders, activists, and diplomats. Reporting back from the summit, I focused on the faith participants had in the COP process, and how they felt they could affect change. For many of the delegates I talked to, an American no-show in Brazil this year won’t be a surprise. COP29 started just a week after Trump’s victory in last November’s election, and many gloomily predicted that Baku would be the last we saw of the U.S. at climate negotiations.
Last year’s summit focused on financial support for poorer countries dealing with the effects of climate change and for those trying to adjust their energy systems. It is the states who contributed the least to climate change who will face its greatest consequences. It ended with disappointment for those of us who believed in climate justice: only $300 billion actually promised in climate finance for developing nations. The $1.3 trillion that experts say is actually needed to deal with the consequences of climate change was set only as an aspirational target.
Faith in the UN’s ability to tackle climate change was thinly spread even 12 months ago: We were gathering beneath Baku’s famous “Flame Towers,” a monument to a booming industry of fossil fuel extraction which Azerbaijan’s president described as a ‘gift from God.’
The walls of the rapidly assembled conference halls were adorned with the laughable slogans, ‘Solidarity for a Green World’ and ‘Keep 1.5 Alive.’ The World Meteorological Organisation announced during the summit that the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels had already been breached temporarily in 2024, and recently they announced the commitment was now ‘virtually impossible’ to keep.
The whole event felt empty: a networking event, not a space to effect change. Yet the biggest obstacle to ambition was the UN’s requirement of unanimous agreement on decisions. Many measures that could command a majority were vetoed by fossil-fuel states like Saudi Arabia, even when most others agreed.
COP30 should’ve been an improvement. Brazil’s climate-friendly government is hosting this year’s summit in the middle of the Amazon; a rainforest President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva has taken drastic action to protect since coming into office, with deforestation hitting an 11-year low, falling just over 11 percent in the 12 months through to July.
An emphasis on nature-based solutions and protecting indigenous rights amid climate breakdown looked to be a refreshing new focus for climate diplomacy. Instead, momentum has been stalled by plain disinterest. 95 percent of countries failed to meet the February deadline to submit their next Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): five-year plans outlining their commitment to emissions reductions in line with the Paris Agreement. Many have since announced their plans in the months and weeks ahead of COP30, including lacklustre commitments from China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, in September.
One nation that will not be boasting of any new targets is the US, with Trump moving to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on his first day in office. The US is still part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and so could attend the Belém Summit: the administration announced last month that it wasn’t worth their time.
America’s absence comes amid a general Trumpian attack on the United Nations: From imposing sanctions on the staff of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and withdrawing from the World Health Organization, to a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly in September where he attacked the climate “hoax,” we’ve seen Trump’s alt-right ‘America First’ agenda undermine progress towards international peace, progress and conservation.
Many will argue that this is exactly when multilateralism needs to be defended. We’ve seen how nations coming together, in the form of the United Nations, the EU, and other organisations, has achieved great things. The work of UN Peacekeepers, the World Health Organisation and others has undeniably made the world a better place through a commitment to a rules-based international order of which every nation is a part. Environmental successes have also been achieved by the UN that would have been meaningless if it hadn’t been for consensus amongst all nations taking part: Take the Montreal Protocol to halt the destruction of the Ozone layer, or even the Paris Agreement 10 years ago.
Still, this summit exemplifies a new global order. The era of global cooperation for the betterment of humanity and the planet is ending. Of course, many countries don’t meet the targets they agree to at COP summits, but with the world’s largest economy turning its back to the rest of the world, decisions at COP can no longer be seen to represent the consensus of the international community. America’s move symbolises a wider lack of good-faith participation at the summit: India, the world’s third largest emitter, will be represented only by its Ambassador to Brazil, whilst the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition has calculated that 1 in 25 delegates are fossil fuel lobbyists, giving the fossil-fuel industry a greater representation than any nation save Brazil. Where America goes, others follow, and COP’s aim to bring the international community together to agree on climate solutions looks more implausible than ever.
This leaves Brazil with a dilemma: should it continue to try to reach consensus on all decisions at the summit among participating nations, playing the usual game of placating fossil-fuel lobbyists who want to see no progress at all? What is the point in trying to reach a compromise with governments who simply don’t care about climate change, if they might just pull out of the agreement at a later date? Questions were already being asked about the efficacy of a consensus-based approach before Trump’s inauguration. Much faster action is necessary, and it remains possible among those who still believe in tackling climate change.
We should always build as broad a coalition as possible when every emission of CO2 counts. But we also shouldn’t let ourselves be held hostage by petrostates and those corrupted by fossil-fuel lobbyists, when a real difference can be made by those who care. We need braver progressive leaders who recognise that we can no longer bring everyone with us.
Changing the official COP rules around decision-making is difficult, but if the Brazilian presidency can end the summit with bilateral agreements between ambitious partners, this moment won’t be wasted on pleasing those who want no progress at all.
When it came to Ukraine, allies responded to Trump’s indifference by forming a ‘coalition of the willing’ to continue fighting Russia’s invasion. It’s time for those willing to act on climate change to do the same. Let’s not let fossil fuel exporters and lobbyists hold us back. Let’s bring together good-faith actors to lead by example, taking decisive action that protects the climate and grows our economies at the same time.
The systems countries have used to work together towards net zero are breaking down. This is a decisive moment in our fight against global warming: ambition is the only answer.