For both Millennials and Gen Zs, the crisis of climate had always been the earth’s prevailing crisis growing up. And for the well-informed, the correlation between certain global catastrophes and the rising levels of CO₂ is common knowledge. 

However, as COP30 approaches and one of the top polluters and global financiers for climate action, the United States of America, flat out rejects the crisis of climate change, it seems that scientific consensus has never been at the forefront without protection against the political brushfire. As it goes without saying, whatever consensus the world may reach, if the empire decides against it, the rest of the world can do nothing but sit idle.

COP: An obsolete institution?

Once a scientific consensus was somewhat evident from various research highlighting the immediate need to take action, two scientific bodies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), jointly established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC published its first assessment report, which led to the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Later, the harrowing report concluded that greenhouse gas concentrations were rising due to human activity and that continued emissions would lead to warming and sea-level rise. The IPCC and Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their conclusive finding that human activities are directly contributing more than 90% to climate change.

The Conference of the Parties (COP) was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and came into force on 21 March 1994.

COP, through its various iterations, tried to legally bind developed countries that are the highest emitters to take steps to curb carbon emissions. However, in most cases, the treaties and agreements signed at COP are voluntary and non-binding, including the highly coveted Paris Agreement of 2015.

The term “non-binding” is the key here. Countries are allowed to set their own goals in curbing carbon emissions, diverting finance to clean energy, and implementing governance towards green practices. This gives it a vague veil of accountability that led to its eventual abandonment by its most crucial partner, the United States of America.

Why COP needs the USA

As one of the highest emitters of CO₂ and one of the leading beneficiaries of industries involved in fossil fuels, the USA holds a significant stake in shaping global policy.

The power of innovation, military might, and rigorous levels of geopolitical influence mean that internal turmoil within the United States not only affects it but also has a rippling effect across the world.

The moments of Al Gore’s campaign were not only a story of America coming together to recognise the climate crisis; they also created a stark contrast showing the other side. Often dubbed the “science deniers,” it is quite true that the scientific community most of the time brushed off any dissent that was not part of the mainstream climate calamity debate.

The conservative right in the US has always held an opposing view of the climate crisis. The conspiracy world of the internet further exacerbated this theory of a globalist agenda. Not to mention, tackling the climate crisis would mean that middle America, full of blue-collar workers, would miss out on fracking and coal mining.

The Republican establishment used this short-term economic concern to benefit their political agenda, leading the voices of climate denial to become the official voices of the Republican Party. To the point where, in 2016, Trump flat out pulled away from the Paris Agreement, calling the climate crisis a hoax, which he further repeated in this year’s UN speech.

From a lack of other hints, it is clear that the majority of the American political class, especially constituencies of middle America composed of Republican-led states, do not recognise climate change as a crisis at all.

Moreover, as media becomes more desecrated and people constantly mistrust mainstream thought, popular podcasts and right-wing social media influencers now fully portray the climate crisis as a “con job,” a term uttered by Trump in his UN speech as well.

The shocking sight is that some within the scientific establishment have left the herd, further emphasising and often capitalising on the rising mistrust of the climate crisis. On the influential podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, Richard Lindzen, PhD of MIT, and William Happer, PhD of Princeton, openly and candidly discussed their opposition to the common narrative surrounding the climate crisis, disputing each and every claim of the international community, both of the UNFCCC and other bodies, as false and financially motivated.

Having turned out to be such a hotbed of climate denial, the US government has openly changed its stance and decided not to send its delegation to this year’s COP30.

It has also opted out of the Paris Agreement’s 100-billion-dollar-a-year investment pledge, and there is no scope for US companies to abide by any national constraints or regulations when it comes to carbon emissions or petroleum extraction from their own soil.

Trump’s own administration is filled with oil tycoons and lobbyists. A report published in The Guardian showed that more than 40 high-ranking officials in the US administration under Trump came directly from fossil fuel industries and their subsidiaries.

This means the second-largest emitter of CO₂, with 4.7–4.9 GtCO₂, does not politically feel pressured to change its course anytime soon. Moreover, the highest-grossing GDP and the richest nation will not be pledging to invest in any industry looking to shift away from fossil fuels either.

COP30 and its agenda

This year’s conference in Belém is the deadline for countries to submit their Nationally Determined Contribution or NDC plans.

NDCs are meant to outline how and what a country intends to do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO₂, through proper financial models and capability-building investment plans.

The UNFCCC report explicitly states, “The Paris Agreement mandates that each Party prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs every five years, and each new submission should represent a progression in ambition compared with the previous one.”

Here lies the problem: how can an agreement mandate NDCs from countries when the agreement itself is still at a non-binding status?

The president of COP30, André Corrêa do Lago, however, sounded confident when he emphasised the need to move forward even without the US. “We need to define how to move forward without the US government. The COP remains an extraordinary opportunity to discuss solutions to climate change, although the US’s departure has a very significant impact,” said the president in an interview published in Le Monde, a newspaper based in Paris, France.

This optimistic view is not something that sceptics share. The Paris Agreement from its start has been faced with various questions about unattainable goals without any legally binding commitments. Some have also shared that the agreement was signed by every country precisely because of its non-binding nature. The president shared a similar view in an interview with Reuters earlier this year: “The Paris Agreement is working, but there is much more to do. After decades of UN climate summits, the model of gathering world leaders is starting to show its limits.”

All in all, the world is waiting to see what its political leaders do to reaffirm their commitment towards a more liveable earth, with some of us becoming more sceptical as more and more mainstream conversations are outright denying what may have been a consensus fact even just a few years ago. Wherever the truth may lie, there is no debate that one should not delay any longer in putting it forward.