KEEP 1.5°C ALIVE

Policymakers gathering for the UN Climate Change Conference in Belém this month should feel a sense of collective responsibility to confront the alarming gap between what countries have put on the table and what is urgently required

- 

It is hard to imagine a more appropriate venue for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30).

Delegations from around the world will gather in the equatorial Brazilian city of Belém, on the edge of the Amazon - one of the front lines of climate vulnerability. Some 40% of the city’s population lives below sea level, and around 82% of residents walk on streets with no shade. Heat and humidity define their daily life, and nature directly sustains their existence.

But as COP30 gets underway, there is no point in pretending that governments are rising to the occasion. The UN Environment Programme's latest emissions gap report makes clear that without stronger governmental action, we will inevitably see temperature levels at which crops fail, cities overheat, economies falter, and the human toll soars. This is the reality that policymakers will confront in Belém, and they should feel a sense of collective responsibility to confront the alarming gap between what countries have put on the table and what is urgently required.Getting to climate safety will not be easy. But acknowledging how far we have come should inspire hope that we can make it the rest of the way. From 2005-15, oil, gas, and coal power generation met 68% of the growth in global electricity demand. From 2015-25, renewables met 67% of the increase in demand.