COP30: high hopes, limited progress in Belém

For the first time in the history of collective action against climate change, hopes were unusually high. People felt optimistic that global leaders, gathering in Belém, Brazil - near the world's largest rainforest - would finally reach a meaningful, broad agreement after their customary two weeks of deliberations.

Yet the world watched as COP30, which began with such promise, ended in failure. As always, the media first highlighted minor, superficial decisions, then dutifully listed the long catalogue of breakdowns and disappointments. Presenting the panacea before the poison has never saved a patient's life, and the same proved true at the closing session of the planet's most important climate governance event. After a gruelling 12-hour extension, the outcome was exactly what the major powers had wanted all along.

Earlier, whether it was pure coincidence or a carefully orchestrated series of warnings, the effect was the same: it shook the global climate community. In the single week leading up to COP30, four major reports were released back-to-back. Many observers believe this unusual timing was deliberate; an attempt to prepare critics, activists and the public for the sobering reality that even the strictest decisions likely to emerge from the summit would still fall far short of what is needed to confront a crisis that grows more alarming by the day.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Climate Action Tracker each published comprehensive assessments. All four reached the same stark conclusion: the measures already implemented, together with the policies currently planned or "on the cards", are grossly insufficient to curb rapidly accelerating climate change.

They also issued a clearer and more urgent warning than ever before: beyond a certain tipping point, every additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted will cause disproportionately greater and potentially irreversible damage than the destruction we are already witnessing.

Yet, when the decisions finally emerged from COP30, they gave the distinct impression that the authorised decision-makers gathered in the Blue Zone - the very people with the power to act - had somehow remained oblivious to the findings of these four landmark reports. They were unwilling to openly admit what all four reports clearly stated: the climate conference had only one meaningful agenda, and that is to nip the evil in the bud.

It is now beyond dispute that the primary driver of climate change is global warming, caused by an intensified greenhouse effect. This intensification, in turn, stems from excessive greenhouse gas emissions, and the main source of those emissions is no secret: the burning of fossil fuels. Therefore, the only effective way to "nip the evil in the bud" is to end society's dependence on fossil fuels by replacing them with clean, renewable energy sources.

Everyone acknowledges that such an activist-sounding demand sounds insane in the business and geopolitical world. Yet a gradual, orderly phase-out of fossil fuels is hardly revolutionary; it was, in fact, explicitly agreed upon at COP28 in Dubai. Unfortunately, that earlier consensus quickly collapsed. The very term "fossil fuel" suddenly became taboo, out of fear of offending the petro-states that hold the energy lifeline of many nations, including those sitting under the decision-making canopy.

Despite the gloomy atmosphere at the start of the conference, expectations remained remarkably high, largely because the host nation was a rare country that belongs to both the G20 and BRICS. This dual membership underlined its unique access to the world's most influential economic blocs and, at the same time, signalled its firm belief that all nations, not just the major powers, should have an equal voice in decisions affecting the planet's future.

Moreover, even though the host ranks among the top ten oil-producing countries, its position on the conference's central issue - the phase-out of fossil fuels - never showed the slightest willingness to compromise throughout the entire event. Yet, astonishingly, at the eleventh hour and despite strong resistance from developing nations, any reference to phasing out fossil fuels was omitted from the final joint statement.

This outcome reveals that the UNFCCC operates little differently from other powerful arms of the United Nations: in the end, it cannot adopt decisions that go against the will of the major powers.

The final agreement indeed covered several positive points, such as tripling climate finance and adaptation funding by 2035; establishing dedicated forest-protection funds; and incorporating indigenous rights and gender considerations into national climate action. However, most of these commitments remain largely voluntary and are likely to progress at the same slow pace as before.

The scaling-up of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) was once again left entirely to the discretion of individual countries, despite four major scientific reports clearly showing that current pledges, even if fully implemented, are nowhere near sufficient to limit global warming to 1.5 °C - a threshold that was already temporarily breached last year.

Because the majority of these measures are voluntary rather than binding, they fall far short of what is required to meet our critical near-term targets: halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050.

We cannot excuse these glaring shortcomings by pointing to the absence of the United States, which withdrew from the Paris Agreement. Any ordinary person with a basic grasp of logic can dismiss that excuse with a simple truth: when runaway climate change eventually overwhelms the planet because we failed to act while we still could, it will not pause to ask which countries stood together and which stood apart. It will simply devastate everyone.