High hopes for COP30, but why do some believe the summit is failing?

ISTANBUL

Thousands of delegates, campaigners, journalists, and industry figures are gathering in Brazil’s Belem, a city perched at the gateway to the Amazon, for the COP30 climate summit running from Nov. 10 to Nov. 21.

Since Brazil won the bid to host, hopes have been high that a COP held in the Amazon – in the country that once convened the original Earth Summit – might finally deliver a real breakthrough in confronting climate change.

But many fear this 30th UN climate conference may fall into familiar patterns: offering little concrete progress while becoming another showcase for lobbyists and officials, leaving the most urgent environmental concerns pushed to the margins.

Patrick Galey, who heads fossil-fuel investigations at Global Witness, told the Guardian that the central problem is a “lack of urgency.”

He is not alone in that assessment. Last year, a group of prominent climate-policy leaders, including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, warned that the COP system is “no longer fit for purpose.”

Albert Norstrom, an associate professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said the COP system has essentially done what it was created to do – foster diplomacy and consensus.

Norstrom said that although the process delivered the Paris Agreement, methane pledges, and several climate-finance mechanisms, the world has now entered a decade that requires real action – and COP is falling behind.

According to Norstrom, emissions continue to rise, natural carbon sinks are weakening, and the 1.5C threshold may be breached within years.

“The architecture was built for negotiation, not ambitious delivery. So, yes, it worked for building the framework – but it’s failing to turn promises into performance,” he said.

Critics argue that rich nations and industry groups flood COP gatherings with huge delegations, dominating space, attention, and side events – frequently promoting weak or misleading climate approaches while overshadowing those most impacted.

Still, experts acknowledge that the COP system has yielded significant accomplishments — setting the 1.5C goal, establishing the loss and damage fund, and securing various finance commitments.

“But with this said, the process is being too slow and inefficient, and not able to properly address the striking inequalities on who bears the responsibility and the burden of climate change,” said Cibele Queiroz, director of knowledge at the Global Resilience Partnership.