Sustainability and the UN Climate Summit - (COP30)
- Doug Mandel
- Dec 11, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 6
Sustainability and the UN Climate Summit - 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30)
The debate over fossil fuel consumption has waged for decades, especially at the United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties (COP), which just finished its 30th annual conference on November 22, 2025. COP30 took place in Belém, Brazil, “the gateway to the Amazon”, where 194 countries participated – the United States shunned the summit. Since the negotiations require a consensus, where any individual country can block progress, the resultant agreement was a “weak” compromise. A 11/22/2025 article in The Guardian stated, “Delegates made minimal headway on a timetable for replacing oil and gas or on firm commitments to reducing carbon emissions.” There were also no new commitments to halt deforestation or the expansion of industrial agriculture in the rainforest.
The contentious negotiations over the future of fossil fuels almost derailed the entire COP30. If this conference ended prematurely, then the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement could have completely collapsed. Even though science shows that fossil fuels are the root cause of the climate crisis, the COP30 final agreement reportedly did not mention “fossil fuels”, not once! The main characters in this tragedy were the petrostates (e.g. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Russia), 1600 fossil fuel lobbyists, emerging economies dependent on fossil fuels, and China versus the Indigenous peoples, European nations, other emerging economies, and small island states. Basically, the rich and powerful dominated the poorer and weaker contingents. Have you heard of this scenario before? Spheres of influence?
There were five main issues debated:
1. Paris Climate Agreement (2015) – In 2015 countries agreed to limit greenhouse gases to limit global heating to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels, while “pursuing efforts” to stay within the lower, safer threshold of 1.5C. Since 2015, only about 17 % of the needed cuts to carbon emissions have materialized. The COP30 agreement - Countries should aim for “full implementation of NDCs while striving to do better.” Do you think they will voluntarily cut emissions and do better? Sadly, no.
If we do not improve upon the current trajectory, scientists say at least 2.5C is in our future by the end of the century along with a logarithmic rise in catastrophic climate events. I do not think this can be overstated.
Brandon Wu, the director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, said: “At this point, 10 years after the Paris Agreement, the countries of the Global North should be pretty close to near-zero emissions. None of them are anywhere close to that.”
Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and professor of earth system science at the University of Potsdam, said: “The truth is that our only chance of keeping 1.5C within reach is to bend the global curve of emissions downward in 2026 and then reduce emissions by at least 5% a year. [That] requires concrete roadmaps to accelerate the phase out of fossil fuels and protection of nature. We got neither.”
2. Phase out fossil fuels - Fossil fuels are the cause of more than 80% of the emissions that propel climate change. Eighty countries pushed for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, but the petrostates vetoed the fossil fuel phaseout. The COP30 agreement asks countries to voluntarily “accelerate” their climate action. Again, do you think they will voluntarily do this? Sadly, no. Are we heading backwards?
In the background China has become the first electrostate by shifting away from fossil fuels and ramping up wind energy, solar energy, and electric cars. China spearheads this move forward, while the United States administration seems insistent on traveling backwards to the 20th century.
3. Adaptation funding – Rich nations (e.g. the Global North) fund vulnerable countries (e.g. the Global South) from the ravages of the climate crisis. The COP30 agreement pushed the funding deadline from 2030 to 2035. Communities currently facing catastrophic climate impacts cannot wait ten years.
Brandon Wu at ActionAid USA said: “Ten years from now is an unimaginably long time for communities facing life-threatening impacts now. Unless developed countries are pressed hard, this decision does little but lock in climate injustice for the foreseeable future.”
Colombia’s environment minister, Irene Vélez Torres, said: “Particularly the oil-producing countries are only trying to focus on adaptation. But adaptation is an empty bag if mitigation doesn’t come next to adaptation. Adaptation alone and the finances for adaptation are not sufficient if we don’t deal with the problem.”
Treating the symptoms instead of the cause does not cure the problem!
Many believe that the Global North needs to set a better example of a more rapid fossil fuel phaseout AND provide the finances to the Global South for its energy transition and adaptation to the climate crisis. After all, the Global North is largely responsible for the climate crisis.
4. Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) – This was one of the bright spots in COP history. JTM is a plan to ensure that the move to a green economy around the world takes place fairly and protects the rights of all people, including workers, women and Indigenous peoples. Care is needed to not leave communities, workers, and ordinary people behind during the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy.
5. Halting deforestation – The agreement for a roadmap to end deforestation failed. However, Brazil created the Tropical Forest Forever Facility outside of the UN process, which will provide economic incentive to preserve tropical forests.
Not-so-fun fact: As of 2021, scientists have confirmed that the Amazon rainforest emits more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb. Unfortunately, this means that the Amazon rainforests are no longer the “lungs of the Earth.”
What is the next step? Given the low bar set by the recent and likely future COPs and the existential threat of the climate crisis, frustrated leaders from about 90 countries decided to form a “coalition of the willing” and create a parallel series of conferences for a just transition away from fossil fuels. Colombia and the Netherlands will co-host the First International Conference on Fossil Fuel Phaseout in the Colombian port city of Santa Marta in April 2026. The conference will proceed outside the UN process, outside the COP consensus-based process.
“The international conference next April is the first stop on the path to a livable future,” said Nikki Reisch, at the Center for International Environmental Law.
My thoughts: WAKE UP!!! – Carbon emissions need to decrease considerably, deforestation needs to stop, planting AND maintaining the right trees in the right places needs to increase, and renewable energy needs to increase (especially wind and solar). We need action through a grassroots effort to counter and overwhelm the power and money of special interests. We can do this, a little bit at a time!
Beware of greenwashing with carbon credits and carbon offset practices. In my view, we should not believe that carbon offsets are the solution to mitigate fossil fuel burning. One of the carbon offset paths is "carbon capture and storage." Even though I received my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, which is at the forefront of this technology, I do not see technology solving the climate crisis to scale anytime soon. Plant more trees NOW to capture carbon!
It does not make sustainable sense to me that we have burned through a huge amount of fossil fuels in the 275 years since the start of the industrial revolution, and it took tens to hundreds of millions of years to convert ancient organic matter to a finite amount of coal, gas, and oil. We consume fossil fuels far faster than they are created = NOT sustainable.
We have already extracted the easy, conventional oil and are now pumping the hard-to-extract remaining and more expensive oil. When it is “gone”, what next? We do not have millions of years for Nature to rescue us, and technology will not save us, at least in the short term. There will always be a need for fossil fuels when there are no other options. Why not keep fossil fuels in the ground for future generations and use cheaper renewable energy now? Doesn't that make sense?
These are some of the insightful comments from COP30:
Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said: “The reality and scale of the crisis means that small steps forward aren’t going to be enough. The world needs to start taking giant leaps to cut emissions, fast. I won’t sugar-coat it – the consequences will be terrifying if words aren’t turned into action soon.”
Steven Victor, the environment minister of Palau, asserted: “Unless we choose the path of course correction right here and now, leaders are dooming our world to disaster.”
Jonathan Watts, The Guardian’s global environment writer, based in Altamira, Brazil said: “We are in a battle around the world between those who want to keep the world habitable and those who want to just exploit it until there’s nothing left.”
Mr. Watts said it perfectly! We are amidst a major battle for sustainability and our future!
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