As climate summit ends in disappointment, is COP broken?

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Who’d have thunk it, eh? Staging the United Nations’ 30th COP climate summit in the heart of the Amazon did not, as widely expected, bring the progress campaigners have long been calling for.

As we reported last week, the summit has been plagued by protests, greenwashing claims and a lack of progress on earlier COP targets. Meat sector lobbying has also been rife, with more than 300 representatives of big agrifood businesses present in host city Belém, and the likes of JBS sponsoring the media zone.

The summit – whose organisers ironically carved a 13km road out of protected rainforests to serve its 50,000 attendees – also suffered from a lack of engagement by global leaders.

And as if metaphors around the crisis facing the climate couldn’t already write themselves, a fire then broke out at the COP venue last Thursday – leaving people “traumatised and shocked”, according to the BBC. So at least some attendees will now have an idea of what it feels like to experience what those in deforested areas do on a daily basis.

COP of truth

As The Grocer’s analysis piece was published on Thursday, there was, at least, some small consolation for anyone who cares about climate breakdown.

A draft text from the so-called ‘COP of truth’, called the Global Mutirão (or ‘collective effort’ in English), included a resolution, signed by more than 80 nations including the UK, urging countries to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.

Unfortunately, that ‘truth’ did not extend to the final text, with all reference to fossil fuels removed, reportedly at the behest of petrostates such as Saudi Arabia.

It was a similar story for deforestation. The word appeared just once in the document, referencing the 2015 Paris Agreement rather than any new initiative. And let’s not forget, given the slow progress since then, that the US has already withdrawn from this agreement twice.

Meanwhile, the climate “super heater” methane did not appear in the document even once. This was despite the UN publishing its Global Methane Status Report at the summit last week, which warned global efforts to reduce its prevalence – especially from big agrifood businesses, of which many were at the summit – still fell “far short” of the a pledge to cut emissions by 30% by 2030.

Small victories

The UN, understandably, attempted to put a brave face on the event’s outcome, with UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell stressing COP30 “showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking, keeping humanity in the fight for a liveable planet, with a firm resolve to keep 1.5ºC within reach”.

But against a background of COP30 taking place in “stormy political waters” and fraught with “denial and division”, he also admitted geopolitics had “dealt international co-operation some heavy blows this year”.

“I’m not saying we’re winning the climate fight. But we are undeniably still in it, and we are fighting back,” he (hopefully) argued.

But there were some small victories. The COP presidency announced plans for a Deforestation Roadmap – but this will take place outside the COP process, and “feels like a consolation prize”, according to NGO Mighty Earth.

There were also pledges to boost finance in areas such as climate adaptation finance, with a goal to triple the $40bn ambition set at COP26 in Glasgow – but this target was also extended from 2030 to 2035.

Brazil denounced for ‘greenwashing’ as meat sector set for centre stage at COP30

Elsewhere, the UN Environment Programme’s food waste breakthrough initiative was unveiled at the summit and aims to “unite governments, cities, and civil society to halve global food waste by 2030 and cut methane emissions by up to 7%”.

Meanwhile, the new Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation (or RAIZ) plan, seeks to “mobilise resources and support the sharing of technologies for the restoration of degraded agricultural areas in different regions of the world”, the COP presidency said.

Is COP the right solution?

But with the target to limit global heating to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels now looking increasingly distant, the outcome of COP30 raises a big question: Is such a big global summit – and the associated climate footprint of flying 50,000 delegates to a single venue – even the right solution to tackle the ever-worsening climate crisis?

The Guardian reported yesterday that the entire framework of the UN “is showing its age”, with consensus decision making at summits like COP meaning “any country has a veto”.

That lack of political consensus from the event reflects the rightward shift (and climate scepticism) currently seen in global political discourse, suggests Wrap chairman Seb Munden.

“We have to [instead] shift the gaze from headline events such as COP to others where progress is being made,” he suggests, particularly at a more local and business level.

And a change in tack, as seen in the debate around food waste “where we don’t even talk about carbon”, would also benefit future summits, Munden argues, with the need to have “more talk about margin, waste, cost” instead, as it’s “more tangible” and easier to sell.

But as the global COP circus packs up for another year (it moves to Turkey in 2026), the overwhelming sense from campaigners is that the ‘COP of truth’ ended up as one of disappointment.

“For a COP hosted in the Amazon, it’s shattering that deforestation took a back seat,” says World Animal Protection director Kelly Dent.

“The pace of action still falls short of the urgency the crisis demands,” adds Marie Rumsby of the Fairtrade Foundation. “Governments must now translate the COP30 agreement into tangible actions that drive progress,” she urges.

But of course, time is now very much running out.