Every year since 1995 countries have met to negotiate their priorities for tackling climate change. This year, the conference of the parties (COP) was held in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. It was expected to be one of the most significant COPs yet. This is partly because of its location. The Amazon rainforest is an important carbon sink, and so the COP would drive forward conversations around forest conservation. Its location also meant it was dubbed by some as the ‘indigenous COP’, as many indigenous people from the Amazon attended the COP or protests around the COP.
Outside COP30 significant protests occurred, driven by some of the people most effected by climate change. Such significant protest has not happened at COPs in the last three years as they have been held in locations where a permit was required for protests, and individual countries or names could not be called out. One such protest happened on the second day of the COP and involved storming inside the building, demanding indigenous land rights to be respected and demonstrating their concern over deforestation and resource extraction in their territories.
Picture: Reuters
On day eight, the Moana pavilion, the home of Pacific states at COPs, flooded. The flooding meant the Pavillion had to be closed for the afternoon, and the events that were planned in the space were postponed or cancelled. It was the only pavilion that flooded, and all other pavilions continued their programmes as planned. The Pacific Islands Climate Action said this was a cruel reminder of the business-as-usual approach that is causing sea level rise in the pacific. Then, two days later, on the penultimate day of the conference, the COP pavilion went up in flames, burning through the African pavilion. The conference had to be evacuated. This caused disruption to key negotiations on fossil fuel phase out.
Picture: Indian Express
Apart from these differences, the COP proceeded like any other: hundreds of panel events operated alongside each other. Typically, these have audiences of less than 10 in the room, and those that are in the room are normally already experts in the material being presented. Over 50,000 people attended the conference and 1 in 25 of these people were reported to be Big Oil Lobbyists. Predictably, there was a sudden rush towards the end of the COP to reach an agreement. Pacific states pushed for better climate finance, stronger climate targets and a roadmap for fossil fuel phase out. However, for an agreement to be met, countries have to unanimously agree on a text. Developing states were successful in negotiating climate adaptation funds to triple, but no roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels was agreed.
COP30 happened in the wake of the International Court of Justice’s landmark Advisory Opinion (ICJ-AO) on climate change, which the Vanuatu government initiated. The ICJ-AO campaign was born in Port Vila, in a classroom at USP where a group of law students decided that the best way to use the law to fight climate change would be to have an AO on climate change. The Vanuatu government took on board their idea and together they led a historic and successful campaign, ‘taking climate change to the world’s highest court’. The ICJ-AO said that states have a legal duty to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and put legal emphasis on COP decisions.
The release of the AO in July this year meant that there was significant anticipation for COP30, and what decisions would be made. Some hoped for stronger climate targets, that would reflect the Opinion issued by the ICJ judges. Others thought an agreement might not be reached as there was now added pressure that agreements made at COPs are regarded as so significant in international law. Others too, suggested that some states might try to back pedal in the agreements because of this. Unfortunately, the official agreements made at COP were not as positive as many had hoped for. At COP28 in 2023, an agreement was made to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’. At COP30, it was hoped that a road map would be agreed on how to do this, but no consensus on what this roadmap would look like was reached.
Following COP30, there is discussion on the role COPs should have in negotiating global response to climate change. For now, however, it is the only mechanism we have to host discussions between all United Nation member states on tackling climate change.
Rachael Parker Allen – I am a PhD student in Geography at the University of Cambridge. I lived in Vanuatu from July 2023 -July 2024 doing research for my PhD. Whilst in Vanuatu, I was part of the Vanuatu Climate Action Network Secretariat and spent time in Erakor.
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