Do UN climate talks have a point any more?

The atmosphere surrounding the annual United Nations climate summits, known as Conferences of the Parties (COPs), has shifted dramatically over the past decade. Once grand displays of global unity and ambition, these gatherings now face growing skepticism, particularly as key world leaders opt to stay home. This year’s COP30 summit in Brazil starkly illustrates this evolving landscape, prompting serious questions about the efficacy and future relevance of multilateral climate diplomacy.

A photograph taken ten years ago at COP21 in Paris stands as a poignant relic of a bygone era. In it, a veritable who’s who of global leadership, dozens strong, stand shoulder-to-shoulder in dark suits before an imposing "COP21 Paris" sign. Front and center, a beaming UK Prime Minister David Cameron stands beside the future King Charles III, with China’s President Xi Jinping nearby. Further to the right, then-US President Barack Obama is deep in conversation, almost cut off from the frame due to the sheer number of dignitaries present. That summit, which culminated in the landmark Paris Agreement – a global accord for nations to collectively limit warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C – represented a high-water mark for international climate cooperation. Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi were also in attendance, underscoring the broad consensus on the urgency of climate action at the time.

Fast forward to the "family photograph" taken this Thursday at COP30 in a humid town on the edge of the Amazon. The contrast is stark. The prominent figures of Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi were notable no-shows, alongside the leaders of approximately 160 other nations. Most significantly, the US President Donald Trump was absent. His administration, having already exited the UN climate process once before, has explicitly stated it will not send any high-level officials this year, signaling a profound disengagement from the established multilateral framework.

This significant drop in high-level attendance begs a critical question: why persist with a two-week-long multinational gathering if so many of the world’s most powerful decision-makers are not present? Christiana Figueres, the former head of the UN’s climate process who oversaw the successful negotiation of the Paris Agreement, voiced her concern during last year’s gathering, declaring the COP process "not fit for purpose." Joss Garman, a seasoned climate activist who now leads the Loom think tank, echoes this sentiment, agreeing that "The golden era for multilateral diplomacy is over." Garman suggests that "Climate politics is now more than ever about who captures and controls the economic benefits of new energy industries," shifting the focus from collective action to economic competition. With global carbon dioxide emissions still stubbornly rising despite 29 previous summits explicitly aimed at reducing them, the value proposition of yet another COP is under intense scrutiny.

Trump and the Climate ‘Con Job’

The United States’ current stance under Donald Trump presents the most formidable challenge to the COP framework. On his first day back in office, Trump dramatically used his signature marker pen to formally withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, a move that sent shockwaves through the international community. His rhetoric has consistently dismissed climate change as a serious threat. "This ‘climate change’ – it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world," he emphatically told the UN General Assembly in September. He further warned, "If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail."

True to his word, Trump has aggressively rolled back environmental regulations, offering billions of dollars in tax breaks to fossil fuel firms and opening vast federal lands for oil, gas, and coal extraction. His administration has also pressured governments worldwide to abandon their "pathetic" renewable energy programs and instead purchase US oil and gas, even threatening punitive tariffs for non-compliance. Japan, South Korea, and various European nations have already committed to tens of billions of dollars in US hydrocarbon imports, illustrating the coercive power of this strategy. Trump’s stated objective is unequivocal: to make the US the "number one energy superpower in the world."

Simultaneously, he has systematically dismantled his predecessor Joe Biden’s clean energy agenda. Subsidies and tax breaks for wind and solar projects have been severely cut, numerous permits withdrawn, and many ambitious clean energy initiatives cancelled. Research funding for climate-related innovations has also seen significant reductions. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, when pressed on the administration’s policy, defended the cuts, stating, "Wind power in the United States has been subsidised for 33 years – isn’t that enough? You’ve got to be able to walk on your own after 25 to 30 years of subsidies." However, John Podesta, a senior climate adviser to both Obama and Biden, offers a starkly different perspective: "The United States is taking a wrecking ball to clean energy. They’re trying to take us back not to the 20th Century, but the 19th."

The impact of this approach extends beyond domestic policy. Last month, a landmark deal aimed at cutting global shipping emissions, a critical sector for decarbonization, was abandoned after the US, in concert with Saudi Arabia, successfully scuttled the talks. This move has deeply concerned many supporters of the COP process, who fear that the US’s fossil fuel-first path could lead other countries to dial down their own climate commitments. Anna Aberg, a Research Fellow at Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre, describes COP as "taking place in a really difficult political context" given Trump’s position. She argues, "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."

It’s Too Late to Win at Table Tennis

Trump’s strategy places the US on a direct collision course with China, which has, over decades, been working to dominate the world’s energy supplies – not through fossil fuels, but through clean technology. In 2023, clean technologies were responsible for an estimated 40% of China’s economic growth, according to the climate website Carbon Brief. Despite a slight slowdown in the previous year, renewables now account for a quarter of all new growth and comprise over 10% of the entire Chinese economy. Like Trump’s America, China is expanding its influence internationally well beyond mere participation in COP summits; it is exporting its entire energy model globally, investing heavily in clean energy infrastructure and manufacturing capacity across developing nations.

This divergence has fundamentally transformed the climate debate. It is no longer solely about environmental stewardship but has evolved into a fierce geopolitical contest between the world’s two superpowers for control of what is rapidly becoming the most essential industry on Earth. This leaves countries like the UK and Europe, as well as major emerging powers such as India, Indonesia, Turkey, and Brazil, caught in a precarious middle ground. A government source from a major developed country, speaking at this year’s conference, admitted, "Of all the things they’re most terrified of, the biggest is being seen to criticize Trump."

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, recently warned Europe against repeating "the mistakes of the past" by losing another strategic industry to China. She cited the decline of Europe’s solar manufacturing base, which succumbed to cheaper Chinese rivals, as "a cautionary tale we must not forget." The European Commission forecasts that the global market for renewables and other clean energy sources will balloon from €600 billion (£528bn) to an astonishing €2 trillion (£1.74tn) within a decade, and Europe aims to capture at least 15% of that burgeoning market.

However, this ambition may prove to be too little, too late. Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Policy Institute, unequivocally states that "China is already the world’s clean-tech superpower." Its dominance in the production of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles (EVs), and advanced battery technologies, he argues, is now "virtually unassailable." He employs a vivid analogy: trying to surpass China’s lead is "like 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."

Indeed, 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 offered at phenomenally low prices. The European Union’s recent move to raise tariffs on Chinese EVs underscores the profound dilemma facing Western economies: open the market and risk the collapse of domestic industries, or close it and potentially hinder the achievement of crucial green targets. While restricting Chinese market access might slow emissions reductions, Joss Garman cautions that "If we ignore questions about economic security, jobs, national security, that risks undermining public and political support for the entire climate effort."

COP: New Purpose or Pointless?

In light of these seismic shifts in global politics and economic priorities, Anna Aberg now anticipates that COP summits will increasingly serve as an annual forum for "holding to account" countries and other organizations, a role she believes remains "important." The gathering in Brazil takes place against a backdrop of alarming scientific consensus. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has already acknowledged that the 1.5°C target enshrined in the Paris Agreement will be breached, describing this failure as "deadly negligence" on the part of the global community. Last year marked the hottest ever recorded, and 60 leading climate scientists warned in June that the Earth could irreversibly breach the 1.5°C threshold in as little as three years at current rates of carbon dioxide emissions. These grim realities further fuel the questioning of an annual, large-scale international gathering.

Michael Liebreich, founder of the energy consultancy Bloomberg New Energy Finance and host of the "Cleaning Up" green energy podcast, advocates for a fundamental re-evaluation of the COP schedule. "I think we need one big COP every five years. And between that, I’m not sure what COP is for," he suggests. He believes that "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." Liebreich argues that discussions would be far more productive if conducted in smaller, more focused meetings dedicated to removing specific barriers to clean energy, or even in financial centers like Wall Street "where people can actually fund stuff," rather than in remote locations on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest.

Despite the criticisms, this year’s COP still aims for important negotiations, including securing a multi-billion-dollar fund to support the world’s vital rainforests, such as the Amazon and the Congo Basin, which are crucial carbon sinks. Michael Jacobs, who advised former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on climate policy and is now a politics professor at Sheffield University, emphasizes that continued collective support for the COP process remains 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 decarbonization because governments will continue to enact climate policies."

The UK’s Shadow Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, firmly believes these meetings have delivered tangible progress by compelling countries to engage with climate change and implement policies that have spurred the renewable energy revolution. He describes the process as "dry, complicated, anguished, it’s tiring," but ultimately, "it’s absolutely necessary."

While many observers now accept a strong argument for scaling down these international gatherings, the fundamental choice confronting so many nations in attendance boils down to their alignment: will they embrace a China-led clean energy revolution, or will they double down on a fossil fuels-first agenda? This strategic dilemma, rather than grand multilateral declarations, is increasingly shaping the future of global decarbonization. As we look ahead to this year’s summit and beyond, many observers predict that the process of decarbonization will be less about the multi-country commitments that defined COPs of the past, and far more about big-money, bilateral deals between individual nations, reflecting a new, more competitive era of climate action.