In the final fractious hours of the U.N. climate summit in Brazil, when a deal to advance the world’s fight against global warming was slipping out of reach, COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago reminded them about the cost of failure.
This was the first international climate conference since the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump in January abandoned international cooperation on global warming, making it crucial for countries to land an accord that demonstrates unity.
“Those who doubt that cooperation is the best way forward for climate are going to be absolutely delighted to see that we cannot reach an agreement between us,” he told the delegates. “So, we must reach an agreement.”
In the end, representatives from nearly 200 nations landed a deal. But its contents, and the messy process that led to its adoption, say as much about the world’s divisions as its resolve to combat climate change together, according to observers, delegates and climate advocates.
The final deal approved language that would triple the money for poorer countries to adapt to the worsening impacts of warming, but also shied away from mentioning the fossil fuels that cause it. Observers described it as everything from a win to a very bad joke.
The two-week path to the final deal involved all the human drama associated with extreme fatigue, frustration and obstinance: Indigenous protesters charged the conference gates; Saudi Arabia threatened the deal’s collapse if its oil industry was targeted; Panama called the talks a clown show; and the closing ceremony was suspended for an hour as host Brazil tried to sort out objections.
When it was all finally gaveled through on Saturday afternoon, Correa do Lago cried.
THIS IS A WIN; THIS IS A JOKE
The absence of the United States loomed over the talks. The world’s largest historic emitter and top economy declined to send a formal delegation as Trump declared global warming a hoax and efforts to combat it a competitive liability.
EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra acknowledged the challenge of forging consensus without Washington at the table to help drive it. Under past administrations, the United States has partnered with the EU to drive ambition for a clean energy transition that could help the world slow warming.
“A player of that magnitude… of course it is a major blow if such a partner is not showing up and not taking part,” he told reporters at the end of the summit.
This year, the EU had pushed hard for language clarifying the world’s transition away from fossil fuels but ended up giving in to demands to keep it out, led by Saudi Arabia, whose Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had just been warmly received at the White House.
A representative for Riyadh told delegates in the final hours of negotiations that any language in the accord that targets its oil industry risks collapsing global consensus, according to three sources familiar with the closed-door talks.
Saudi Arabia declined requests for comment.
That outcome, along with limited efforts to protect forests, made scores of countries unhappy.
“A Forest COP with no commitment on forests is a very bad joke. A climate decision that cannot even say fossil fuels is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence,” said Panama’s COP negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey.
Those frustrations spilled out in the final plenary session, where Latin American nations led a series of objections that forced the suspension of the closing ceremony, already a day past its scheduled end, by more than an hour.
CLIMATE COOPERATION TO BE TESTED
The deal delivered a key demand of developing nations by calling for a tripling of climate adaptation funds meant to help countries cope with the mounting impacts of a warming planet, such as rising seas, heat waves, and fierce storms.
That was welcome news for some.
“We managed to get a deal done. And so, I think from AOSIS’s perspective, this is a win,” Ilana Seid, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters.
“And it’s a win for multilateralism and it’s a chance that we can uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement, which are incredibly important to us,” she said, referring to the 2015 international deal to keep warming within 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore framed the outcome as “the floor — the bare minimum of what the world must do — not the ceiling that limits what is possible.”
He noted that while oil producer states had blocked language on phasing out fossil fuels, Brazil’s COP30 presidency will lead an effort to develop such a roadmap, backed by more than 80 countries.
