Neil Auwarter

Thirty years after the first global climate summit in Berlin, and 10 years after the historic Paris Agreement at COP21, nations gathered in November in Belem, Brazil for COP30.  The port city sits near the mouth of the Amazon River and is a gateway to the great rainforest that serves as one of the largest carbon sinks on earth.

Attendees at Belem included representatives of 194 nations. But for the first time in COP’s history the United States declined to attend, punctuating the Trump Administration’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on the first day of his current term. While the Trump Administration was absent, a record number of officials attended from U.S. states, including Governors Gavin Newsom (CA), Tony Evers (WI) and representatives from 22 other states.  Also present were envoys from nearly 100 U.S. cities. The attendance roll from the U.S. underscored the rapid uptake of climate action by state and local governments, even as the Trump Administration has allied itself with the fossil fuel industry. The same grassroots trend was evident globally, with 14,000 cities and other local governments attending and pledging to increase local climate efforts.

With the United States’ abdication of its role as global leader in climate action, China emerged as a principal player at Belem. China maintained a large pavilion with displays showcasing its emerging prominence in green energy, particularly in electric cars and solar technology. The Chinese negotiating team, headed by Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, aggressively advocated for the exports of its green technology industry. While China is by far the largest global greenhouse gas emitter, due largely to its massive coal power sector, it has used that power to launch a green energy juggernaut that will eventually replace coal and other fossil fuels. “China gets it,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom while attending the conference. “America is toast competitively, if we don’t wake up to what the hell they’re doing in this space, on supply chains, how they’re dominating manufacturing, how they’re flooding the zone.”

Assessing the overall impact of the Belem gathering, climate experts gave mixed grades. A key shortcoming was that Belem’s final agreement failed to set a time-frame for phasing out fossil fuels. Eighty nations had backed a concrete phase-out plan, but the measure was scuttled by opponents led by petrostates Saudi Arabia and Russia. Another shortfall was that to date the vast majority of signatory countries to the Paris Agreement have fallen short of their carbon-reduction goals set in Paris. Accordingly, the planet is currently on a trajectory for a temperature increase of 2.3-2.5°C by the end of the century, well above the Paris goal of ≤1.5°C.

On the positive side of the ledger, the end-of-century forecast of a 2.3-2.5°C increase is a moderate improvement over last year’s forecast of 2.6-2.8°C. Further, Belem participants agreed to triple joint financing of climate adaptation measures, to $120 billion annually. And the final agreement produced a “Climate Action Agenda,” activating more than 480 voluntary initiatives in key climate areas, including energy and industry transition, protection of forests and oceans, biodiversity, agriculture, and renewable energy financing. Finally, the robust attendance — with the United States being the only country to have withdrawn from the Paris Agreement — demonstrated that a coordinated global effort to protect the Earth’s climate continues even absent U.S. leadership. Anna Abert, of the thinktank Chatham House, expressed relief that a “Cop collapse” was averted, saying, “It is a positive that a deal was reached in Belem, even if many will — legitimately — be disappointed with the level of ambition.” Simon Stiell, UNFCC Executive Secretary, expressed a similar gritty optimism: “I’m not saying we’re winning the climate fight. But we are undeniably still in it, and we are fighting back.”

Here is Local Climate Action’s report card for COP30, grading the some notable successes and failures:

Climate Action’s Report Card COP30 Belem 2025
D-	Trump Administration for withdrawing from Paris Agreement and failing to attend COP30
B+	24 U.S. states and 85 U.S. cities who attended
A	China for its COP30 leadership and increasingly dominant green technology industry
F	China for its horrendous coal energy emissions
B-	84 nations that continued to press for a timeline to phase out fossil fuels, even though consensus remained elusive
F	Petrostates like Saudi Arabia that scuttled the proposed fossil fuel phase-out timeline
Incomplete	The well over half of Paris signatories who have fallen short of their goals
Valedictorian	China for emerging dominance in green technology
Fox-in-Henhouse Award	1,600 fossil fuel industry lobbyists among the 40,000+ attendees (1 in 25 attendees, the same as the ratio of pickpockets to passengers on the Paris METRO)
Not Walking the Walk Award	Brazilian President Luiz Inacia Lula da Silva, who while attending COP30  lodged offshore  in a luxury yacht estimated to burn 4000 liters of diesel fuel during the conference
Best Hair	California Governor Gavin Newsom, obviously