COP30: unkept promises

The lights at COP30 have dimmed in Belém and the rows of negotiating tables stand deserted. Yet as the final gavel struck, it echoed not with resolve, but resignation. COP30, for all its promise, did not live up to expectations. Instead, it quietly folded into the long archive of climate conferences that spoke loudly at the start and whispered at the end.

A summit charged with urgency failed to deliver its most critical task, which was an unwavering commitment to phase out fossil fuels. Nations most vulnerable to climate shocks, those who came clinging to a fragile hope that the world would at last address the source of their suffering, walked away disheartened. The multilateral process, already bruised by decades of delay, suffered another blow. There were early discussions of forest financing and recognition of historic carbon debts. But diplomacy - that delicate dance between the pragmatic and the powerful - faltered.

The result was a communiqué stripped of its spine. The last-minute removal of fossil fuel language, influenced by backroom manoeuvres between Washington and Riyadh, indicated that climate negotiations remain hostage to geopolitical might. For the first time in three decades of COPs, the US sent no official representation, and without one of the world's largest emitters at the table, the incentive to commit faded. Then there is the structural flaw of the unanimity rule. One or two nations can effectively veto the world, making a process a self-defeating one.

Still, we must not lower the curtain on hope. Renewable energy is advancing faster than sceptics predicted, and citizens are demanding accountability with a clarity that politicians can no longer ignore. But neither technology nor activism can compensate for leadership that shrinks at the sight of tough decisions.