A photograph taken a decade ago in Paris now appears almost an artifact of a bygone era.
It captures a gathering of numerous men and women in formal attire, assembled before a large sign emblazoned with “COP21 Paris.”
Then-Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, is seen beaming in the center, alongside the future King Charles III, and just ahead of China’s Xi Jinping. Further to the right, then-US President Barack Obama is engaged in conversation, partially obscured by the edge of the frame – a testament to the sheer number of global leaders present that day.
This contrasts sharply with the group photo taken this past Thursday at the COP30 summit in Brazil.
Notably absent were Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, along with approximately 160 other national leaders. Conspicuously missing as well was the US President, Donald Trump.
Indeed, the Trump administration has entirely withdrawn from the process, indicating it will not send any high-level representatives this year.
This raises a fundamental question: what purpose does a two-week multinational gathering serve if a significant number of global leaders choose not to participate?
Christiana Figueres, who formerly headed the UN’s climate process and oversaw the establishment of the Paris Agreement, suggested at last year’s assembly that the COP process is “not fit for purpose.”
“The golden era for multilateral diplomacy is over,” echoes Joss Garman, a former climate activist who now leads the Loom think tank.
“Climate politics is now, more than ever, about who captures and controls the economic benefits of new energy industries,” he stated.
Given that carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, even after 29 of these meetings aimed at reducing them, one must question whether further COPs will have any meaningful impact.
Upon his return to office, President Trump promptly initiated the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the 2015 UN treaty where nations committed to working together to limit global warming to below 1.5°C.
“This ‘climate change’ – it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” he declared before the UN General Assembly in September. “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
He has since rolled back restrictions on oil, gas, and coal, approved billions in tax breaks for fossil fuel companies, and opened federal lands for resource extraction.
Furthermore, Trump and his administration have urged governments globally to abandon their “pathetic” renewable energy initiatives and instead purchase US oil and gas, sometimes with the threat of punitive tariffs for non-compliance. Several nations, including Japan, South Korea, and those in Europe, have agreed to purchase tens of billions of dollars in US hydrocarbons.
Trump’s objective is clear: he aims to make the US the “number one energy superpower in the world.”
Concurrently, he has embarked on dismantling his predecessor Joe Biden’s clean energy agenda.
Subsidies and tax incentives for wind and solar energy have been reduced, permits revoked, and projects cancelled, accompanied by cuts in research funding.
“Wind power in the United States has been subsidised for 33 years – isn’t that enough?” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright questioned when asked about the administration’s policy. “You’ve got to be able to walk on your own after 25 to 30 years of subsidies.”
John Podesta, a senior climate advisor to both Obama and Biden, views the situation differently. “The United States is taking a wrecking ball to clean energy,” he contends.
“They’re trying to take us back not to the 20th Century, but the 19th.”
Last month, a landmark agreement designed to reduce global shipping emissions collapsed after the US, together with Saudi Arabia, effectively terminated the talks.
Many supporters of the COP process are expressing concern. What are the implications if the US approach encourages other countries to weaken their commitments?
Anna Aberg, a Research Fellow at Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre, describes the COP as “taking place in a really difficult political context,” given Trump’s position.
“I think it’s more important than ever that this COP sends some kind of signal to the world that there are still governments and businesses and institutions that are acting on climate change.”
Trump’s strategy puts the US on a collision course with China, which has also been working for decades to dominate the world’s energy supplies – but through clean technology.
In 2023, clean technologies drove roughly 40% of China’s economic growth, according to the climate website Carbon Brief. After a slight slowdown last year, renewables accounted for a quarter of all new growth and now make up more than 10% of the entire economy.
And, like Trump’s America, China is engaging internationally well beyond participation in COP – it is taking its entire energy model global.
This division has fundamentally altered the climate debate, creating a situation where the world’s two superpowers are competing for control of the planet’s most critical industry.
It leaves the UK and Europe, along with significant emerging economies like India, Indonesia, Turkey, and Brazil, caught in the middle.
Speaking at this year‘s conference, a source in government at a major developed country said: “Of all the things they’re most terrified of, the biggest is being seen to criticise Trump.”
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, warned last month that Europe must not repeat what she termed the mistakes of the past and lose another strategic industry to China.
She called the loss of Europe’s solar manufacturing base to cheaper Chinese rivals “a cautionary tale we must not forget”.
The European Commission has forecasted that the market for renewables and other clean energy sources will grow from €600bn (£528bn) to €2 trillion (£1.74tn) within a decade and wants Europe to capture at least 15% of that.
But that ambition may come too late.
“China is already the world’s clean-tech superpower,” says Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Policy Institute. Its dominance in solar, wind, EVs, and advanced battery technologies, he says, is now “virtually unassailable”.
He likens it to trying to beat the Chinese national team at table tennis: “If you want to surpass China, you had to get your act together 25 years ago. If you want to do it now, you have no hope.”
China produces over 80% of the world’s solar panels, a similar share of advanced batteries, 70% of EVs, and more than 60% of wind turbines – all at phenomenally low prices.
The EU’s recent move to raise tariffs on Chinese EVs reflects the scale of the dilemma. Open the market and Europe’s car industry could collapse; close it and green targets may not be met.
Restricting Chinese access to these markets may slow emissions reductions, says Joss Garman, but he argues, “If we ignore questions about economic security, jobs, national security, that risks undermining public and political support for the entire climate effort.”
Now, with these shifts in direction of global politics and priorities, Anna Aberg says she expects COP to become an annual forum for “holding to account” countries and other organisations, something she believes remains an “important role”.
The gathering in Brazil follows the acknowledgement by UN Secretary-General António Guterres that the 1.5°C target set in Paris will be breached – this, he has said, represents “deadly negligence” on the part of the world community.
Last year was the hottest ever recorded, and 60 leading climate scientists said in June that the Earth could breach 1.5°C in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. Yet more people are questioning the need for an annual gathering.
“I think we need one big COP every five years. And between that, I’m not sure what COP is for,” says Michael Liebreich, founder of energy consultancy Bloomberg New Energy Finance and host of a green energy podcast, Cleaning Up.
“You can’t just expect politicians to go and make more and more commitments. You need time for industries to develop and for things to happen. You need the real economy to catch up.”
He believes it would be much more productive for the discussions to happen in smaller meetings focused on removing barriers to clean energy.
But he also believes that some issues, like implementation, need to be discussed in places he deems more relevant – like on Wall Street “where people can actually fund stuff” – as opposed to on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest.
Even so, this will be important negotiations at this year’s COP. Among other things, it aims to get an agreement for a multi-billion-dollar fund to support the world’s rainforests like the Amazon and the Congo Basin.
Michael Jacobs, who advised Gordon Brown on climate policy and is now a politics professor at Sheffield University, believes that continued collective support for the process is crucial.
“It’s a big political message, because Donald Trump is trying to undermine the collective process, but it’s also a message to businesses that they should continue to invest in decarbonisation because governments will continue to enact climate policies.”
The UK’s Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband believes these meetings have delivered real progress by getting countries to engage with tackling climate change and enact policies that have made the renewable revolution possible.
“It’s dry, it’s complicated, it’s anguished, it’s tiring,” he says – “and it’s absolutely necessary”.
Many now do, however, accept there is a strong argument for these international gatherings to be scaled down.
Ultimately, however, the real choice underlying it, for so many nations in attendance, simply comes down to the extent to which they align with a China-led clean energy revolution – or double down on the fossil fuels–first agenda.
Which is why many observers say the process of decarbonisation is going to be less about the multi-country commitments of COPs past, and far more about big-money deals between individual countries as we look ahead to this year’s summit – and how COPs may well play out in the future.
Top picture credit: Getty Images
BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. You can now sign up for notifications that will alert you whenever an InDepth story is published – click here to find out how.
The world must “defeat” climate denialism and fake news, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva tells UN climate summit.
Millions of pellets, thought to have come from the Eastbourne treatment works, have been washed up at Camber Sands.
He also pardons his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows in a proclamation vowing to “end a grave national injustice”.
Hull City Council says fly-tipping is a “deep source of frustration” for people living in the city.
The current budgetary battle between rival lawmakers is the longest on record, but an end is now in sight.