Is Global Climate Summit A Waste Of Time Climate Crisis 247

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 11:16 AM

is global climate summit a waste of time climate crisis 247

David Callaway and Douglas McIntyre, Editors-in-Chief at Climate Crisis 24/7, discussed the growing futility of annual global climate summits. They criticized how recent summits in Egypt and the UAE were undermined by oil interests, calling them the symbolic end of global cooperation efforts. Looking ahead to the next summit in Brazil, they warned of logistical chaos and political inaction, suggesting that without a major shift, climate diplomacy has lost its effectiveness. Even corporate sponsorships like Coca-Cola’s were mocked for their irony in the face of environmental degradation. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Arthur Wyns has received funding from the University of Melbourne, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU. The United Nations’ global climate summit has finished for another year. Some progress was made in Brazil on climate finance and adaptation. But efforts to end reliance on fossil fuels were stymied by – you guessed it – fossil fuel powers. It left many observers with a question: is this really the best we can do?

Nearly every country (except the United States) joined the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. The meeting showed the best and the worst of multilateralism – when countries try to address global problems beyond the capacity of an individual nation. World leaders stay away as spectre of Donald Trump haunts flagship UN climate summit Papua New Guinea is boycotting this week's Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in protest against the "empty promises and inaction" from richer countries. The Pacific island's foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko called the UN's flagship climate event a "total waste of time", and he joined a growing list of leaders who will not be attending. The outgoing US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and China's President Xi Jinping are also among the absentees in Baku.

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. NEW YORK, Oct 18 (IPS) - Next month, the latest annual United Nations climate extravaganza, COP27, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Last year it was in Glasgow. Next year it will be held in (drum roll please) … Dubai! These big climate events have been around a long time.

Since 1995, there has been a climate COP (short for “Conference of the Parties”) every year except 2020, when it was postponed due to the Covid pandemic. Over the years, the COP roadshow has traveled far and wide. From Berlin to Buenos Aires, Kyoto to Cancun, and Bali to Marrakesh, the COPs have criss-crossed the globe with the aim of finessing new agreements to see off the specter of climate change. These annual summits generate a lot of interest. The most recent in Glasgow attracted tens of thousands of participants. World leaders and celebrities often jet in and join the throng, while the global media reports every move in the corridors of power and concerned citizens protest outside.

And yet the COPs are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to UN-sponsored climate meetings. If you add the several preparatory meetings in the lead-up to the COPs, plus a host of workshops and other events by various expert technical groups, you’re easily looking at several dozen gatherings every... Each event is supposed to help us move the needle on climate change, keeping our warming world within the 1.5o Celsius threshold beyond which we face potentially catastrophic consequences. But what, exactly, do all of these many meetings accomplish? Are they really worth all this time and effort? This year’s UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan kicked off with a fulsome celebration of fossil fuels, praised by the country’s president Ilham Aliyev as a “gift of God.” It ended with a climate...

The question at COP29 was how much wealthy countries, most responsible for the climate crisis, owe poor countries facing the worst impacts. The answer: $300 billion a year by 2035. Rich countries said it was the best they could do. Poorer countries called it “abysmal,” falling far below the $1.3 trillion economists say they need to cope with a crisis they have not caused. In the wake of a chaotic, bitter summit and heavily criticized final deal, some experts are asking whether the whole COP process is now so lacking in ambition as to be almost worthless. Amid geopolitical upheaval, including the election of a climate denier in the US, Baku might be remembered as the beginning of the end of multilateral climate action.

“The dismal outcomes of COP29 … have raised serious concerns about the integrity of the global climate negotiation process,” said Harjeet Singh, of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. Next week world leaders, negotiators, lobbyists and NGOs are due to meet in the Azeri capital Baku for COP29. The UN climate conference has been billed as the “finance COP” as countries are due to set a new global climate finance goal this year. Ahead of COP30 in Brazil next year, they are also expected to submit strong national climate commitments - also known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs. More than 100 heads of state and government have confirmed their attendance, according to UN sources. A number of world leaders and government officials, however, have already said they won’t be travelling to Baku.

Here we explain who’s sitting it out and why. Over the last few weeks, a raft of different European leaders have announced that they won’t be attending COP29. The COP30 summit in Brazil showcased both the promise and pitfalls of global climate negotiations. While progress was made on finance, adaptation, and deforestation initiatives, consensus-based decision-making stalled action on fossil fuels. Experts argue reforms—such as majority voting, stronger implementation focus, and curbing vested interests—are essential to make these summits more effective. The United Nations’ global climate summit has finished for another year.

Some progress was made in Brazil on climate finance and adaptation. But efforts to end reliance on fossil fuels were stymied by — you guessed it — fossil fuel powers. It left many observers with a question: is this really the best we can do? Nearly every country (except the United States) joined the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. The meeting showed the best and the worst of multilateralism — when countries try to address global problems beyond the capacity of an individual nation.

Is Global Climate Summit A Waste Of Time Climate Crisis 247

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