COP30 and the world go up in flames

By Staff Writers Alex Duan, Amber Halvorsen, Michael Qin, Warren Su

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30), an annual session of the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference held at Belém, Brazil in November, was the second largest COP ever. Despite this participation, the lack of tangible action disappointed spectators who sought more progress. Even under international spotlight, world leaders bickered and clashed while oil lobbyists, representing a notable percentage of attendees, worked to stall any action. Outsiders, including youth and younger activists, who followed COP30, only grew increasingly alarmed about the irreversible future the world is heading toward. 

COP’s goal aims to fight the climate crisis through creating international cooperation. At COP, any agreements shared between all signatories must reach a consensus. However, no countries are compelled to sign or even comply with any negotiated agreements. At COP21, 195 countries signed the Paris Climate Accords, a major agreement to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. The US withdrew from this agreement in 2020, and again during Trump’s second term in January. Another important COP was COP28, where a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels was made. 

COP30 was significantly less productive, solely focusing on monetary commitments while omitting key energy plans. Petrostates like Saudi Arabia and Russia, along with large companies’ delegates from ExxonMobil and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), infiltrated the conference and swayed negotiations unfavorably. Due to lobbying, the term “fossil fuels” was not even mentioned in the final agreement, despite the UN reporting that fossil fuels contribute to around 68 percent of global greenhouse gases. Fossil fuel lobbyists were successful because they amassed a delegation larger than almost every attending nation, with more than 1,600 present out of the 60,000 total delegates. The fossil fuel lobbyists had no interest in addressing climate change; instead, they defended corporations who felt threatened by climate action. Beyond conferences, fossil fuel lobbyists have been prolific in American politics. Fossil fuel advocates invested more than $96 million to Trump’s re-election campaign, a fraction of, according to OpenSecrets, the more than $2.4 billion lobbyists have spent since 2008 on American politics. What was supposed to be a conference focused on tackling climate change quickly became a way for fossil fuel corporations to exercise more power. “While local Indigenous peoples struggled to enter the conference, fossil fuel lobbyists walked in freely,” activist Pim Sullivan-Tailyour said to The Guardian. “My generation deserves Just Transition policies that reflect what people and the planet need, not what polluters’ demand.” 

Currently, young people are the most environmentally aware generation thus far, with the Pew Research Center finding that almost 70% of Gen-Z and millennials prioritize the climate crisis, demanding more efforts. Similarly, Yale University found that, in spite of the nearly 70% of registered voters who support the Paris Climate Accords, Trump still withdrew the US from the agreement, prioritizing his own claim on unfair economic burdens over the American people’s general will. In spite of this awareness, young people find themselves as the sole advocates for a problem that leaders have long been aware of. According to Gallup, 60% of Americans find their government is doing too little about climate change, driving climate fatigue and indicating that people are tired of politicians pandering to monetary interests and risking the future. 

The lack of productivity at COP30 represents the disillusionment that youth have with climate progress. Global conferences should be transformative; however, they are often not. A survey from the Royal College of Psychiatrists found 57% of youth psychiatrists have reported seeing children with anxiety due to the climate crisis, outlining the contrast in levels of concern between youth and the general voter. As youth grow more aware, politicians need to be more incentivized to enact climate policies, and the people need to ask more of them. Otherwise, change will continue to remain stagnant as the fears of climate change rapidly increase. 

Even when government leaders turn a blind eye to the impending global crisis, youth advocates have the ability to initiate change, one step at a time. It is imperative that we step up and ask more of our governments to strengthen commitments and resolutions. Time is running out — The global climate clock estimates that three years remain before we surpass the 1.5°C threshold, and the UN projects that we are likely to overshoot this goal. Although it may feel difficult to influence national or international policy, taking action at a local level can be as impactful. The Guardian estimates that 75% of the carbon emission reduction goals listed in the Paris Accords’ can be achieved exclusively through local and state action alone, contrary to common belief that government action is the sole method to achieving it. The Bay Area is home to many youth climate activism groups, from the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit to the Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, that students can partake in to drive change locally. Many MSJ clubs are also proactive, such as MSJ Youth4Climate and MSJ Green Club. Even without the care of oil-lobbied politicians, youth and locally driven climate organizations often create awareness and help to pass impactful legislation. Where international cooperation fails to step up and fight climate change, the responsibility, local and global cooperative efforts need to step up at all levels so that we can succeed.