COP30 talks open with a plea for countries to get along
The COP30 climate summit began with the UN climate chief urging countries to cooperate; because international consensus limits efforts to curb global warming.
Host country Brazil has brokered a deal on the agenda for a two-week summit in the Amazonian city of Belem, deflecting attempts by developing country negotiating blocs to include contentious issues such as climate finance and carbon taxes in talks.
It was unclear whether the countries would aim to negotiate a final agreement at the end of the event, a tough sell in a year of turbulent global politics and U.S. efforts to prevent a shift away from fossil fuels.
Some, including Brazil, have suggested that countries focus on smaller efforts that don’t need consensus, such as combating deforestation, after years of COP summits made mostly unfulfilled promises.
“In this arena of COP30, your task here is not to fight each other; your task here is to fight this climate crisis together,” said UN Climate Change secretary-general Simon Stiell.
Three decades of UN climate talks have helped bend the projected warming curve downward, he said.
“But I’m not sugarcoating this. We have more work to do,” he said.
A new UN analysis of countries’ emissions reduction plans predicts global greenhouse gases will fall by 12 percent from 2019 levels by 2035, an improvement on the previous estimate of 10 percent published last month.
The new figure takes into account the latest commitments, including those from China and the EU.
But this figure was still insufficient for the 60 percent emissions reduction needed by 2035 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures; This is the threshold at which scientists say climate change will cause much more severe impacts.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva warned against interests trying to hide the dangers of climate change.
“They are attacking institutions, science, universities,” he said.
“It is time to impose another defeat on the unbelievers.”
The United States, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, chose to skip the summit; US President Donald Trump falsely claims that climate change is a hoax.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham were expected to be in Belem on Tuesday.
“What’s going on here?” Newsom said in his speech at the global investors summit in Sao Paulo on Monday that the US government was not involved in the talks.
COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago said at a press conference: “I think the absence of the United States… has opened up a space for the world to see what developing countries are doing.”
Germany said it would press for European countries’ commitments to rein in fossil fuel use; this was a goal encouraged by Lula.
“We will defend something strong,” German Deputy Minister Jochen Flasbarth told Reuters.
The countries were joined by indigenous leaders, who arrived by boat on Sunday after traveling nearly 3,000 km through the Andes.
As climate change increases and industries such as mining, logging and oil drilling deepen, they are demanding a greater say in how their territories are governed.
“We want to make sure that they don’t keep making promises that they’re going to start protecting, because it’s us indigenous peoples who are suffering from these effects of climate change,” said Pablo Inuma Flores, a Peruvian indigenous leader.
Scientists at dozens of universities and international scientific institutions have raised alarms about melting glaciers, ice sheets and other frozen areas around the world.
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