COP 30: a Brief Overview
Editor's note: This article was written before COP30 took place.
What is COP30?
The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) is an annual meeting where world leaders, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and representatives from civil society gather to discuss actions regarding climate change. The 30th edition of the conference, COP30, will take place in Belém, Brazil, from November 6 to 21.
The Conference, convened under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is known as a place where major treaties have been signed. Among them, the Kyoto Protocol, established at COP3, was the first international agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions. Another major accord, adopted at COP21, was the Paris Agreement. Its main goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.” Pre-industrial levels refer to the average global condition prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 18th century.
Why COP30 matters more than ever
As this year’s COP knocks at the door, the expectations and pressure on climate diplomacy are immense: it’s been a decade since the Paris Agreement, yet countries aren’t reducing their emissions effectively, leading the world to warm faster than at any point in recorded history.
In fact, NASA research published in 2021 shows that the proportion of the world’s population exposed to floods increased by 20 to 24 percent in just 20 years — a tenfold increase over previous models’ predictions. One of the reasons this happened is that every 1°C rise in temperature can lead to 7% more humidity in the atmosphere, causing more precipitation. According to the UN, 250 million in the last 10 years people have had to relocate from their cities or states due to climate disasters.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, finally stated that overshooting the 1.5°C goal is “inevitable” and that it is “absolutely indispensable to change course”. This year’s United Nations Conference of the Parties may be the last chance to do that.
Economics of Climate Action
In this context, one of this year’s key priorities is on economic solutions to combat global warming. These methods are based on clean energy, bioeconomics, and technological innovations, which can create more jobs and attract additional investments.
“We have to develop economic solutions that drive us to fight climate change not only out of conviction, but also out of economic interest.” President of COP 30, André Corrêa do Lago, said in an interview for G1.
It is also expected that forests will be a major focus of negotiations: holding the conference in Belém, a city in the Amazon Rainforest, draws global attention to the importance of forests like the Amazon in removing planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Latin American countries are expected to take the lead in discussions, highlighting the importance of the Amazon rainforest and amplifying the voices of the indigenous communities that live there, serving as a call for inclusion and action.
Indeed, the Brazilian presidency will be pushing for action to end deforestation, since the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) is set to launch at COP30 and will provide funding to countries that commit to preserving those forests. More than 70 developing countries with tropical forests will be eligible. Projections indicate that the fund should generate USD4 billion annually for environmental preservation.
According to UNFCCC, more than 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity is found in tropical forests, which are the basis of life, economy, and well-being. Thereby, TFFF seeks to engage and help countries that have those forests by investing USD 4 per hectare preserved per year, raising funds in the global financial market. Beneficiary countries will have the autonomy to define the final destination of the funds.
“Unlike previous experiences, which are largely based on donations and philanthropy, the TFFF brings innovation because it puts less pressure on anyone’s budget, since it’s an investment,” Rafael Dubeux, special adviser to the Minister of Finance, stated.
TFFF is a trust fund, similar to the endowments that support U.S. universities like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. The initiative has already received positive signals from countries such as Colombia, Ghana, Bolivia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the economic bloc BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) — all of them looking forward to the positive impact it could have worldwide. Norway, on the first day of the Leader’s Summit, announced that it would invest US$3 billion. By November 7, the fund had 6 billion dollars in initial capital.
Absence of the United States of America
As Brazil and other nations push for sustainable finance and innovation, not all countries share the same commitment. The United States is the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. However, the country will not send any high-level representatives to Belém — this means that whichever resolution is signed there won’t have the United States as a signatory, proving Mr. Trump’s neglect of climate change.
The United States’ not sending an embassy to COP30 is only the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger transformation of the role that the world’s largest economy has in preserving the planet. There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate, yet climate change deniers, like the U.S. president, continue to argue against this scientific consensus, calling the climate crisis a “hoax” and a “con job”.
With this argument, in January, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement (the exit will take effect in January 2026). In April, the President also dismissed hundreds of meteorologists who had been researching the Climate Crisis, as his government pursues an agenda that prioritizes the fossil fuel industry, neglecting global warming.
As the UN Secretary-General noted: “We have the solutions to transform our economies and protect our people. The obstacle is political courage.”
Oil exploration in the Amazon Basin
Meanwhile, the host country faces its own contradictions: Ibama, the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, granted Petrobras, Brazil’s biggest oil company, a license to begin oil exploration near the mouth of the Amazon Basin.
The government estimates that the Equatorial Margin holds reserves sufficient to extract 1.1 million barrels of oil per day. The Equatorial Margin is an extensive littoral, with around 2,200 kilometers of coast. The region has 5 sedimentary basins.
“On the eve of COP30, Brazil presents itself in green on the international stage, but stains its own hands with oil. As the world looks upon the Amazon for answers to the climate crisis, Ibama has authorized Petrobras to drill a new oil well in the very heart of the planet,” stated Mariana Andrade, coordinator of Greenpeace Brazil’s Oceans Program.
Conclusion
While Brazil prepares to welcome the world to Belém, COP30 serves as a reminder that countries have to translate ambition into action. The science is clear, the tools exist, and the solutions are on the table: what is missing is the will to act.
As nations arrive in Belém, they face different but related challenges: developing countries continue to struggle with limited resources to combat climate change. Meanwhile, developed nations are pressured to put words into action and accelerate their own transition away from fossil fuels.
Those 15 days will determine the path climate politics will take in the next few years and will call into question the effectiveness of geopolitics. World leaders have two options, as Guterres brought up: “We can choose to lead, or be led to ruin.”