With every passing year, the severity and urgency of the climate crisis grow. Rising temperatures and the climatic changes that accompany them are having effects that will become more and more catastrophic, including: more frequent and intense heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires; major disruptions to agriculture and consequent famine; rapid spread of new epidemics; and fresh water shortages. Nearly all measurements tell us that the problem is at its most serious in recorded history. 2024 set a new average global surface temperature record, and atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are all at record highs. Ice mass in Greenland and Antarctica are at record lows, and the oceans are hotter than ever recorded. And yet when it comes to humans’ contribution to climate change, just as many records are being set. Coal, oil, and gas consumption and carbon dioxide emissions are all higher than ever.
For the past 30 years governments have admitted that climate change warranted discussion at the annual conference of the parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Ten years ago, at the COP 21 in Paris, countries around the world developed a treaty that set 1.5 degrees Celsius as the target limit for warming temperatures. The agreement has been a failure, with none of the worlds’ richest countries following through on their obligations. The UN now acknowledges that hitting the 1.5° C target has become immensely unlikely. Fossil fuel production remains twice as high as would be needed to stick to a 1.5° C limit. The big business owners and the politicians around the world that rely on and support them do not want to make the changes to the economy that addressing climate change demands—they must prioritize profit over the well-being of humanity and the earth.
The COP conferences continue nonetheless, with no hope of pulling us out of the descent into climate catastrophe. COP 30 is currently occurring in Belém, Brazil, is being attended by more than 5,350 fossil fuel lobbyists. Many more lobbyists are attending as invited delegates of countries or are representing other polluting industries like tech or weapons manufacturing. These lobbyists engage in well-documented obstruction tactics to slow, water down, or prevent agreements at COP. Even when discussions do appear productive, there is a shared assumption that measures to address climate change can come only through markets and investment. They emphasize capitalist technological shifts like promoting carbon markets, carbon capture and storage, and redirecting financial investments. Any proposal that results in a decrease in profit is considered unfeasible.
This reliance on capitalism is what got us here in the first place. A system that demands endless growth every year from a planet with finite resources can simply never be organized in an ecologically sustainable manner. In the words of an Indigenous protester at the current Brazil COP 30, “We can’t eat money.”
Humanity is facing a global problem. The atmosphere, climate, and weather do not stop at borders, nor do the mass displacements of populations that the climate crisis has already begun to produce. The enormous changes to our economies and infrastructure that will need to be implemented to prevent future greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climatic changes demand real international cooperation. The COP conferences see interaction between countries, sure, but only the wealthiest and most powerful have a real voice. Only when conversations on climate action are led by the global working class who keep the world’s economies running, regular people living in the regions most threatened by climate change, and the researchers with deep understandings of earth science and ecology, will we be able to envision a world with a safe and livable future.
