\u201cRight now, our people are losing their lives and livelihoods from storms of unprecedented strength which are being powered by warming seas. Our coral reefs, the lifeblood of our islands\u2019 food systems, culture and economies are at a tipping point in dieback. Forest ecosystems are at a tipping point. The window to protect lives and economies is closing.\u201d<\/p>\n
While 194 countries argued for more than 12 hours on Friday night<\/a> over the final details of what should be voluntary and what should be a legally binding commitment as the Cop30 UN climate summit drew to a close, Steven Victor, the environment minister of Palau, tried to remind them of what they were fighting for: people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are dangerously close to a 1.5C global warming overshoot, driven by the actions of bigger countries,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless we choose the path of course correction right here and now, leaders are dooming our world to disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n The outcome of the Cop30 climate summit<\/a> will be measured not in the abstractions of \u201cshall\u201d, \u201cshould\u201d and \u201cagree to\u201d that are the substance of the more than 150 pages of text gavelled through on the podium, but in lives<\/a>. Developing countries are looking forward to a tripling of the finance to help them adapt to extreme weather<\/a> \u2013 measures such as regrowing mangrove swamps, erecting flood defences, growing new crops or storing water against drought \u2013 but that language is couched in ambiguous terms. It \u201ccalls for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance\u201d.<\/p>\n The $120bn (\u00a392bn) a year promised by 2035 must also be compared with the $360bn they are projected to need. That makes a huge difference to countries with overstretched budgets that are already spending on climate defence instead of health and education.<\/p>\n Brandon Wu at Action Aid said: \u201cTen years from now is an unimaginably long time for communities facing life-threatening impacts now. Unless developed countries are pressed hard, this decision does little but lock in climate injustice for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n Going into Cop30, the biggest concern was over the inadequacy of the national climate plans<\/a> that countries have drawn up. Known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris agreement<\/a>, these are supposed to be submitted every five years, and should be in line with the commitment to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.<\/p>\n But more than 70 countries \u2013 including India and Saudi Arabia \u2013 failed to file any NDC, and those that were received were mostly inadequate. Taken together, they would lead to global heating of about 2.5C, far above the 1.5C limit, and represent only about a sixth of the cuts to greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are necessary.<\/p>\n The outcome of Cop30 leaves a lot for the presidency of Australia, which will host Cop31 in Turkey next year<\/a>, to deliver. Photograph: Pablo Porci\u00fancula\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The response of Cop30<\/a> to this dire situation was to agree to further talks about the issue among the countries that wish to join. China, India and others objected to any in-depth discussion of the NDCs at Cop30, or any binding decision to upgrade to make them adequate to the scale of the problem.<\/p>\n More than 80 nations also proposed beginning discussions on a roadmap to \u201ctransition away from fossil fuels\u201d<\/a>, putting into practice a resolution made at Cop28 in 2023<\/a>. The proposal was mild and regarded as \u201cweak\u201d by some civil society groups, because it called only for countries to start talking about what such a transition might look like, with each setting their own pathway and milestones, and no firm timetable and no coercion.<\/p>\n Laurence Tubiana, an architect of the Paris agreement and chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, said: \u201cEvery country has to imagine for itself what policies they want, what role they have to play, and what ambition they have.\u201d<\/p>\n But after bitter fighting with Saudi Arabia and the Arab Group, Russia, some African countries and other countries dependent on fossil fuel consumption, even this proposal was watered down to a voluntary initiative, which the Brazilian presidency will report back on next year.<\/p>\n Johan Rockstr\u00f6m, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and professor of earth system science at the University of Potsdam, said: \u201cThe truth is that our only chance of keeping 1.5C within reach is to bend the global curve of emissions downward in 2026 and then reduce emissions by at least 5% a year. [That] requires concrete roadmaps to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels and protection of nature. We got neither.\u201d<\/p>\n Civil society groups welcomed a commitment to a \u201cjust transition mechanism\u201d. But Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa thinktank, said the exclusion, at the insistence of China and Russia, of wording on the exploitation of the critical minerals needed for renewable energy components \u2013 which has been accompanied by human rights abuses in many mining regions \u2013 was problematic.<\/p>\n \u201cThis omission glosses over the human cost of mineral extraction, including the deaths of more than 30 artisanal cobalt miners in the DRC earlier this week,\u201d he told the Guardian. \u201cThese miners supply the minerals that power the clean energy boom, and wiping their realities out of the text is both ethically and politically indefensible. We cannot fight for a renewable future without also ensuring we have just and equitable ways to handle the extraction necessary to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n