With characteristic pomp and fanfare, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change’s COP30 Summit, convened from Nov. 10-21, in Belém, Brazil.
But the celebratory atmosphere could scarcely hide the fact that, for the first time, the U.S. government boycotted this year’s COP. Moreover, official Indigenous representation was overshadowed by the 1600 or so lobbyists for industries tied to fossil fuels, many of them U.S. firms. If those lobbyists could count as one country, they would make up the second largest delegation behind that of the host country. Unsurprisingly, lofty declarations were made that are non-binding and the final agreement, Global Mutirão (roughly, “collective mobilisation”), ended up being little more than acknowledging implementation challenges. Even the term “fossil fuels,” though implied as a cause of the climate crisis, was omitted from the text.
The overall aim of COP30 was to build on and strengthen the 2015 Paris Agreement’s implementation, focusing on finance, adaptation to climate change, and “nature-based solutions”. The Paris Agreement is “a legally binding international treaty on climate change … adopted by 195 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21)” to work towards keeping global average temperatures to 2°C and preferably no higher than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Another aim was to strengthen climate justice and just transition aspects of policy agreements. It was therefore important to bring into relief the representation of Indigenous communities, whose lifeways exemplify ecological sustainability but are most intensely undermined by climate change. This year saw the highest official participation from Indigenous communities out of all previous summits.
In his inaugural speech, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva underscored the urgency of this year’s COP, depicting climate change as “a tragedy of the present” and calling for “institutions that are up to the scale of the crisis we are facing.” Lamenting the proliferation of disinformation, he asserted there is movement “in the right direction, but at the wrong speed.” Putting together a policy to fight disinformation (the “Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change”) and creating a “Climate Action Agenda” are now touted by the COP conveners as among the major feats. The Climate Action Agenda is an international coordination mechanism broadened to include Indigenous people and other communities aside from mainly governments, NGOs, and large firms (through their lobbyists). Also worthy of note is the Belém Action Mechanism, which is an attempt to coordinate just transition policies and links worker and Indigenous rights to biodiversity preservation. Yet another highlight is the establishment of several programmes for forest protection (implying failure for past “market-based” policies), high-impacting greenhouse gas emissions reduction (such as hydrofluorocarbons), climate justice support, and sustainable farming promotion, among others.
Two crucial issues, however, met resistance from several governments for wide-ranging reasons and thus remain unresolved. One is the matter of transitioning away from fossil fuels, in part because some governments insist on a uniform path and in part because of the U.S. government imposing sanctions and tariffs on much of the world.
The other unresolved concern is financial support to countries for adaptation to climate change. So far, hardly even a tenth of what has been promised has been delivered to the climate adaptation fund. Instead of the $365 billion needed per year, only $23-28 billion have been transferred to the fund. About a seventh of current world military spending would cover the costs.
What was accomplished in COP30 largely conforms to what has been accomplished in nearly all prior COPs: a lot of efforts, resources, and greenhouse gas emissions just to move the discussion forward, often postponing decisions on key matters to the next COP. Lula was on the mark about the COPs’ “wrong speed”, except that the pace is at most nanometrical compared to what has been needed since at least the 1980s.
Nevertheless, it was significant, for example, that official pronouncements at COP28 had mentioned fossil fuels for the first time as a main cause of greenhouse gas emissions, despite enormous lobbying from fossil fuel firms. It was also an important milestone at COP30 to include Indigenous communities through direct representation, not just via NGOs. There have also been rare instances of agreements and policies being drawn up, with many governments signing up, even if put into action inadequately, like the above-mentioned and so far failing “climate adaptation” fund to help out over-exploited countries, or being eventually abandoned, like the capitalism-friendly Kyoto Protocol.
U.S. empire the biggest contributor to climate change
The COP’s consistently underwhelming outcomes are traceable to an inveterate obstructionism by a U.S.-led fraction of global capitalist interests who represent a tiny minority of the world’s people. The U.S. government reneged on the agreement under the previous Trump administration, then rejoined under the Biden presidency, only to reject it again with the second “con job” Trump government. Meanwhile, the U.S. government pressures the world into burning more oil and natural gas, while suppressing alternative energy within its borders.
A waning power hell-bent on keeping global control, the U.S. empire and its allies are the biggest historical contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Fossil fuel firms and the U.S. government are also the loudest promoters of blatant lies on climate change. As the biggest purveyor of violence and with a globally-invasive and financially bloated military that is the greatest polluting and greenhouse gas emitting institution on Earth, the U.S. empire is the largest obstacle to the stability necessary for global cooperation and coordination on climate change issues and much else. U.S. government belligerence and intransigence represent the interests of many giant corporations, which are over-represented at each COP and are part of the 100 firms directly responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The people’s response to COP30
The fact of holding COP30 at the “gateway to the Amazon” was viewed as a powerful symbol. But the location itself, Belém, is most significant. Belém, on the Pará River, was the first European colony in the Amazon and the beginning of centuries of slaughter, genocide, slavery, and resource theft that made the Brazil and capitalist world of today.
That sordid past, continuing under different guises in the present, was not lost to the Indigenous and other activists vigorously protesting — a day into COP30 — the underdevelopment forced on local communities and the nearby forest destroyed to make room for a motorway into the conference.
The next day, 200 vessels carrying about 5,000 people from 60 countries sailed to Guajará Bay in front of the city to demonstrate against mainstream non-solutions and underlining the importance of ancestral Indigenous knowledge systems. Upon arrival, thousands cheered them from the shore.
Local and Indigenous activists also organized a concurrent, alternative conference as part of COP30 proceedings. The People’s Summit, which ran from Nov. 12-16, demanded the end of market-based solutions to the climate crisis, calling instead for an agenda and a set of guiding principles that centered environmental and social justice. The declaration ensuing from the People’s Summit, started with identifying emphatically, “The capitalist mode of production [boldened text in original]” as “the main cause of the growing climate crisis.”
Unlike most prior COPs, where protests were pre-empted or met with police violence, the Brazilian government courted dialogue with non-governmental and especially Indigenous organisations. In this manner, the People’s Summit was in part integrated into COP30 proceedings, in line with the Climate Action Agenda. These institutional compromises sat a bit awkwardly alongside a barricaded negotiations venue and the police expulsion of tens of Munduruku protesters who had broken through the venue’s barriers to protest government inaction in the face of social injustice and environmental harms Munduruku People suffer.
Nevertheless, repression, such as there was, did not amount to anywhere near the level of violence experienced in prior COPs.
Only socialism can solve the climate crisis
It would be tempting to dismiss COP30 as yet another capitalist farce, but that would miss out on getting the pulse of the global balance of forces and identifying the main contradictions and weak points, helpful towards sharpening the focus of where efforts need to be applied and developing effective political strategies. U.S. government intransigence and fossil fuel firms are being challenged, even if feebly, by such actions as the agreement on information integrity and the Climate Action Agenda. Capitalist classes are getting more divided over climate change.
The People’s Summit is an astute use of such high-level talks to build parallel international non-state institutions and the pressure has been felt by what amounts to an “exclusive, billionaire-driven, corporate-dominated” meeting. The inclusion of Indigenous voices is one sign that years of pressure being applied through protests and alternative summits are having some success.
Still, given existing international relations of power, where the U.S. state and its allied underlings actively support genocide in Palestine, foment wars worldwide, divert massive amounts of resources towards rearmament, and impose deadly economic blockades, all efforts should be laser-focused on defeating the U.S. empire. The U.S. empire is the capitalist world economy’s primary contradiction and it is perhaps becoming its weakest link. To have a chance at avoiding a global climate of even more frequent and more destructive extreme weather, a socialist system is needed in the U.S., for the sake of improving and safeguarding the well-being of all Americans and the rest of the world.
Only through socialism can the necessary national and international coordination and planning be realised to transition beyond fossil fuels, to build an economy that fulfills people’s needs and ensures a liveable planet for us all.
Feature image: Opening ceremony of COP30. Credit: Flickr/Ricardo Stuckert (CC BY-ND 4.0)
