COP30 shows climate forum is ‘severely broken’

COP30 is over, the main annual global forum where member countries meet to assess progress on climate change, make decisions on climate action such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and coordinate efforts to address its impacts. It is bound by UN rules that require unanimous agreement, which is what made the Paris Agreement so remarkable 10 years ago, even though that agreement had no power of enforcement.

It is awful news that at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, there was no real progress made to address climate issues and limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane.

The United States didn’t attend, which may have been a good thing given its delegates would have represented the (very pro-fossil fuels) Trump administration, but previously the US had always adhered to the rules and nudged others to help build a consensus.

Reports from COP30 indicate that petro-giants Saudi Arabia and Russia were at the fore in restraining any useful progress in limiting fossil-fuel warming in this respect. About 80 countries, just under half of those present, demanded a concrete plan to move away from fossil fuels. It was not to be, and yet another indication that the COP process is severely broken and little more than a discussion forum. It is not a scientific one.

There was some hope that China would step up to take a leadership role, but it was no surprise to me that it didn’t. My own experience dates back many years in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change negotiations to approve the scientific assessment reports in 1995, 2001, and 2007 where I was involved as a key author.

Saudi Arabia has always been strong on weakening the wording of any commitments, as it has been this year. China was also strongly opposed to scientific statements until after 2007 when its leaders were convinced by their own scientists that China had a lot to lose from climate change, including enhanced storms (typhoons), flooding and droughts.

But China does what it thinks is best for China, not for the world. And MAGA in the US is also focused on what the Trump administration thinks is in its own interests.

As a climate scientist from New Zealand, with over 40 years living in the US, I quickly became aware of how the global atmosphere affected our weather and climate. It is impossible to be a serious climate scientist without a globalist view, and recognise the need for nations to work together, as they have in the weather enterprise under the World Meteorological Organization which facilitates sharing global observations to fuel analyses and model predictions. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change is a spinoff of that and NZ has participated in both, to its benefit.

However, the current Government has changed many laws that will adversely affect the global climate and has done little to prepare for the consequences for New Zealand and its people. 

It also operates under dated laws that, for instance, emphasise growing trees as a way to limit carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This has been shown many times to not be much help, as trees have a finite life, are harvested, become diseased, or get caught in wildfires.

Carbon dioxide circulates through the climate system, especially in plants, but is not removed from the system for many hundreds of years. However, deforestation in the tropics has been disastrous in removing trees and replacing them with cattle farms. COP30 was particularly disappointing in addressing this, even though it was held in an area next to the Amazon where indigenous interests are paramount.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is on track to hit a record high this year. The world has already warmed by about 1.5C since late 19th-century averages, and 2025 is likely to be among the top three warmest years on record.

But it is the weather and climate extremes, wildfires, and rising sea levels that cause the main damage. The areas most affected naturally move around from year to year with weather and climate natural variability playing substantial roles, but with global warming making all extremes worse. In New Zealand, risks from stronger atmospheric rivers of moisture from the tropics and subtropics raise the risk of flooding and erosion, as seen many times in recent years.

New Zealand should strongly support a way for the UN to advance the interests of the vast majority of nations, rather than the vociferous and more powerful few, and get its own act together in decarbonising the economy and preparing for the consequences of climate change.

This article is also published on Newsroom. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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