Climate summit viewed as flop by many

The COP30 talks held in Belem, Brazil, end without a timeline for reducing fossil fuels.

- PETER PRENGAMAN

BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had been optimistic.

MISPER APAWU Associated Press

This year's U.N. climate conference in Brazil had many unique aspects that could have been part of a historic outcome.

COP30, as it's called, was hosted in Belem, a city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, a crucial regulator of climate and home to many Indigenous peoples who are hit hard by climate change and are part of the solution.

It had the heft of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an influential and charismatic leader on the international stage known for his ability to bring people together. And encouraged by Lula's rousing speeches in the summit's beginning days, more than 80 nations called for a detailed road map for the world to sharply reduce the use of gas, oil and coal, the main drivers of climate change.

In the end, none of that mattered.

The final decision announced over the weekend, which included some tangible things such as an increase in money to help developing nations adapt to climate change, was overall watered down compared with many conferences in the last decade and fell far short of many delegates' expectations. It didn't mention the words "fossil fuels," much less include a timeline to reduce their use.

Instead of being remembered as historic, the conference probably will further erode confidence in a process that many environmentalists and even some world leaders have argued isn't up to the challenge of confronting global temperature rise, which is creating more frequent and intense extreme weather events such as floods, storms and heat waves.

The criticism was withering and came from many corners.