As COP30 shows, rich nations and elites still block climate progress

Twenty-nine years of the UN-led climate mitigation efforts, better known as the Conference of Parties (COPs) – the 30th round of which is being held at Brazil’s Belem currently – have failed to produce material changes.

Climate change is accelerating, pushing the world towards catastrophic consequences now more than ever before – with global warming breaching the 1.5°C limit as emissions, deforestation, and land-use changes make new highs.

The UN Environment Programme’s “Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target”, released on November 6, makes all these abundantly clear and needs to be read in detail.

'COPs failed to check climate change'

In the foreword of this report, UNEP’s executive director Inger Andersen writes, “UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off target finds that only about a third of parties to the Paris Agreement submitted new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 30 September 2025. Yes, global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of all NDCs, are now 2.3–2.5°C, compared to 2.6–2.8°C in last year’s report.”

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She goes on to explain, “However, methodological updates account for 0.1°C of the improvement, and the upcoming withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Agreement will cancel another 0.1°C of the progress, which means the new pledges have barely moved the needle. Meanwhile, nations are not even on track to meet their 2030 targets; based on policies currently in place, the world is heading for up to 2.8°C of warming.”

The report further says, “Ten years of the Paris Agreement has spurred climate action, but ambition and implementation still fall short of what is needed (limiting to 1.5°C).”

Global warming breached 1.5°C in 2024

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released another report on the same day (November 6, 2025), “State of the Climate Update for COP30”.

It reveals: “…the past 11 years (2015-2025) are set to be the warmest on record, with each year surpassing previous temperature highs. The global mean temperature for January-August 2025 was 1.42 °C ‡ 0.12 °C above pre-industrial levels, underscoring the accelerating pace of climate change. Concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and ocean heat content, which both reached record levels in 2024, continued to rise in 2025.”

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It summed up the current state of climate change: “record greenhouse gas concentrations drive record heat”, “sea ice and glaciers continue to retreat”, and “extreme weather causes massive social and economic disruption”.

In January 2025, the WMO had said that for the first time the global average surface temperature breached the 1.5°C target at 1.55°C, adding: “We have likely seen the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.”

The following image, taken from the WMO’s November 6, 2025 report, maps the rise in global temperature since 1850.

What happens when global temp breaches 1.5°C

Here is what the UN’s latest “climate action” update says: “Failing to do so will lead to increasingly frequent and dangerous extreme weather events including heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and heavy precipitation and flooding. Extreme heat causes the greatest mortality of all extreme weather, with an estimated 489,000 heat-related deaths per year between 2000 and 2019.”

It also adds: “Exceeding 1.5°C could also trigger multiple climate tipping points — such as breakdowns of major ocean circulation systems, abrupt thawing of boreal permafrost, and collapse of tropical coral reef systems — with abrupt, irreversible, and dangerous impacts for humanity.”

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The data this report provides comes from the 2020 UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNODRR) assessment, which said, during 2000-2019 “7,348 major disasters claimed 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people (many on more than one occasion), resulting in $2.97 trillion in global economic losses”.

A few facts to keep in mind

(i) COP21 (Paris, 2015) set the target of keeping global warming – that leads to climate change and arises due to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) – “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C”.

(ii) GHGs are: Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).

(iii) COPs are held under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

(iv) 198 countries are signatories to the UNFCCC.

(v) Recorded temperature history goes back to 1850.

Fossil fuel, land-use, deforestations drive emissions up

The UNEP’s November 5 report, mentioned earlier, says under subhead “Another year of broken records” that global GHG emissions reached 57.7 GtCO2e in 2024, a 2.3 per cent increase from 2023 levels, and the increase is occurring in all major sectors and all categories of GHGs.

The main causes remain the same: Fossil fuels, deforestation, and land-use change.

It says, in 2024, fossil CO2 increased by 1.1 per cent, accounting for 36 per cent increase in global GHG emissions and land use, land-use change, and forestry increased by 21 per cent, accounting for another 53 per cent increase.

Carbon billionaires and conflicting interests

On October 28, 2025, the World Inequality Lab released a report titled “Why Climate Policy Must Tackle Ownership”. It made three stunning revelations:

(a) “Wealthy individuals fuel the climate crisis through their investments, even more than their consumption and lifestyles. At the world level, the top 1 per cent represent 15 per cent of global consumption-based emissions, while they account for 41 per cent of global emissions associated with private capital ownership.” (original emphasis)

(b) “Climate change can deepen wealth inequality, while well-designed policies can help reduce it. The top 1 per cent could see their share of world wealth jump from 38 per cent to 46 per cent by 2050 if they own tomorrow’s low-carbon assets.” (original emphasis)

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(c) “Despite the Paris Agreement’s call to halt new fossil fuel projects, more than 200 new or expanded oil and gas projects and over 850 coal mines are currently under development or have received approval, backed by capital linked to institutional investors and wealthy individuals often (though not only) based in the Global North.” (emphasis added)

In November 2022, Oxfam International’s report “Carbon Billionaires” had arrived at similar conclusions: “The world’s richest people emit huge and unsustainable amounts of carbon and, unlike ordinary people, 50 per cent to 70 per cent of their emissions result from their investments. New analysis of the investments of 125 of the world’s richest billionaires shows that on average they are emitting 3 million tonnes a year, more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90 per cent of humanity.” (emphasis added)

Another conclusion that can be derived from the above is the conflict of interest of global billionaires in the fight against climate change: Climate mitigation may dent billionaires’ wealth.

Add another big hurdle the world has known for long and which causes yearly slugfest between developed and developing countries at the COPs: Developed (rich) countries have contributed the most to the climate crisis.

‘Lack of political courage’: Guterres

UN Secretary-General António Guterres best explained these conflicts at the two-day leaders’ meet at Belem on November 6, “What’s still missing is political courage. These fossil fuels still command vast subsidies – taxpayers’ money. Too many corporations are making record profits from climate devastation – with billions spent on lobbying, deceiving the public, and obstructing progress. Too many leaders remain captive to these entrenched interests. Too many countries are starved of the resources to adapt – and locked out of the clean energy transition. And too many people are losing hope that their leaders will act.”

It is long known and officially recognised that poor countries and poor people are disproportionately hurt by climatic disasters.

US – biggest contributor to climate change

This time the COP summit is being held without the US presence – for the first time in 30 years of its history. US President Donald Trump calls climate change a “hoax”, “con job”, and “scam”, and has asked US oil companies to “drill, baby drill”.

The US happens to be the biggest contributor to climate change.

The European Commission showcases a study that shows the US was “the largest contributor to warming since 1850”. During 1850-2021, the US was “responsible for a 0.28°C increase in temperatures, or 17.3 per cent of warming induced by global emissions of the three gases (CO2, CH4 and N2O)”.

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The US is “followed by China (0.20°C, corresponding to 12.3 per cent), Russia (0.10°C, 6.1 per cent), Brazil (0.08°C, 4.9 per cent), India (0.08°C, 4.8 per cent), and Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, and the United Kingdom (each contributing 0.03–0.05°C).”

On March 17, 2025, “Our World in Data” produced a study showing the US emitted the most carbon dioxide between 1750 and 2024, at 24 per cent. An image from the report is reproduced below.

Bill Gates turns climate sceptic

A few days ago, billionaire Bill Gates turned climate sceptic – from a climate champion.

On October 28, he wrote on his “Gates Notes” website criticising concerns over climate change as “doomsday view of climate change” which focused “too much on near-term emissions goals”.

“It will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future”, he added, advocating a shift in policy to “the biggest problems - poverty and disease”.

How to rescue COPs

What ails COPs are clear from all the above.

The biggest hurdle continues to be the conflict of interests of rich countries and rich individuals. Since they are the ones who make policies and laws, it is an impossible ask, or call it a classic paradox.

Next is the voluntary mechanism to mitigation, called Nationally Declared Commitments (NDCs) – introduced at the COP21 (Paris, 2021). The US walked out of its COP commitments, unleashed fossil fuel, and refused to even attend the COP30 – with no consequences.

UNEP executive director Inger Andersen, quoted at the beginning, pointed at two other big flaws with the NDCs:

(i) “only about one-third” signatories to the COP21 submitted their new NDCs by 30 September 2025 (India among the defaulters) and

(ii) even “full implementation of all NDCs” will fail and the world “is heading for up to 2.8°C of warming”.

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This mechanism needs to be replaced with one that can be enforced and monitored.

The World Inequality Lab’s report on billionaires’ carbon footprints, also mentioned earlier, lists three “policy options” for the world:

1. Global ban on new fossil fuel investments.

2. Tax on the carbon content of assets.

3. Public investment shock in low-carbon infrastructure is critical to a faster and “fair transition”.

The first two options can be safely ruled out as long as Trump is in power.

Trump coerced the European Union to exempt 90 per cent of US companies from its carbon tax in their trade treaty announced in July this year. His administration signed two oil and gas exploration ventures – one with Pakistan in July 2025 and the other with Greece the day the leaders’ meet was held at the COP30 on November 6.

The third option is the only one that is doable.