COP30: Trump's Shadow Looms Over Belem
Trump's influence will be felt even if the US does not send a federal delegation.
COP30 in Belem, Brazil, on November 10-21, takes place as multilateralism is under strain, governments are wavering on decarbonization targets, and US President Donald Trump is on the offensive against climate action.
Countries will meet to discuss how Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) stack up against the Paris Agreement's targets.
What was meant to be a COP focused on NDC ratchets has become about nature and loosely-defined "implementation."
In the circumstances, some would consider an uneventful conference to be a success: the energy transition, increasingly driven by technology rather than policy, would have survived another potential derailment by geopolitics.
Others would see climate diplomacy as having failed in its core mission of increasing the pace of collective action on both mitigation and adaptation, even as the impacts of climate change worsen.
Author's summary: Trump's influence looms over COP30 in Belem.