COP30 Belem - quo vadis |
The outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), held at Belem, Brazil from 10 to 21 Nov 2025, was anxiously awaited with the ardent hope that the world as a whole will deliver unflinching commitment and affirmation to restrict and reverse the accelerated trend of global warming beyond the agreed target of 1.5°C by 2030. The primary onus to achieve universal consensus for meeting the agreed climate goals and Paris Agreement 2015, legally and morally, lied with the developed countries and emerging economies like China and India, which are responsible for major GHG emissions. However, the plight and the predicament of the planet earth is self-evident from the bleak reality that the reduction of GHG emissions reported at COP30 under the current pledges and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) was merely 12% by 2035, far below the 60% required to stay within the 1.5°C limit without realising that every fraction of a degree of warming could lead to catastrophic impact on the lives and livelihood of vulnerable people and communities. The extreme weather events, severe heatwaves, torrential downpours and raging floods and consequent mass extinction of biodiversity, greater mortality rates and incessant food and water insecurity, among others, will diminuate the future generations' ability to survive and sustain.
The failure to respect and implement the international climate obligations under the Paris Agreement is a glaring manifestation of the inherent design defect in the governance structure of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The predominance of myopic "national political interest" to the........