COP30 was marked by fire and doused in rain. But UN climate summits can still work

SINGAPORE - Like many critics of COP30, I arrived in Brazil sceptical about how much change such UN summits can enact given the ongoing geopolitical conflicts and trade wars.

How likely was it for nearly 200 countries constrained by tight budgets to find consensus over the increasingly costly endeavour of halting and adapting to the effects of the warming world?

While overcoming the fatigue of three back-to-back flights and an 11-hour time difference, I also wondered whether attending the proceedings virtually would have saved me from generating planet-warming carbon emissions.

Unexpectedly, it took the spontaneity and chaos of the 2025 summit for me to see why such in-person talks can help combat climate change.

A forum for collaboration

For one thing, the annual summit is

the biggest forum for global climate change policy negotiations.

With the guaranteed attendance of the world’s governments and the international media, the conference attracts people vying for attention and support for the causes they champion.

This manifests in a buffet of press conferences, protests and events run by countries, multilateral agencies, non-profit actors and other parties, running parallel to the formal negotiations that mostly take place in rooms not open to the media.

COP30 in Belem, a coastal town on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, drew more than 56,000 registered participants, making it the second-largest of such summits after COP28 in Dubai.

This means that even if the world’s governments reach a deal that falls short of expectations, as they often do, the forum functions as a site for new collaborations and coalitions tackling climate change.

For civil society, demonstrating at the COP30 entrance and outside the negotiation rooms became a surefire way for activists to highlight regional circumstances that may otherwise escape the world’s attention.

For instance, I met activists from the Philippines who delivered passionate speeches calling for funding to help the vulnerable archipelago cope with typhoons, citing two devastating tropical storms that occurred within a week.

In the same week, a group of indigenous activists protesting against development pressure in the Amazon blocked the entrance of the venue until they secured a meeting with the COP30 president.

In the second week, activists outside the meeting rooms used dozens of stuffed capybaras, an attempt to use cuteness to persuade the world’s leaders to close the gap in funds needed for projects tackling climate change.

And where the world fails to find agreement, countries have stepped in on the sidelines.

For instance, countries at COP30 failed to agree to develop under the UN process a road map to phase out fossil fuels. But Colombia and the Netherlands stepped up on this front, announcing that they will co-host a separate event to discuss the transition.

Baby steps

Considering the fragmented state of international affairs in the wake of the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement, I realised that any progress is still preferable than none.

Under the international treaty which was adopted in 2015, countries agreed to pursue actions to cap warming to well below 2 deg C, and ideally, 1.5 deg C, above pre-industrial levels.

To achieve this, countries must every five years set more ambitious climate change targets. The latest round of climate targets for 2035 were due by COP30. And analyses have shown that the iterative rounds of climate target setting are paying off.

In October, the UN assessed that the world will heat up by between 2.3 and 2.5 deg C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This still exceeds the 2 deg C warming threshold, but the latest projection is still an improvement from the range between 2.6 deg C and 2.8 deg C in the previous year’s report.

Towards the end of the second week, the European Union climate commissioner initially warned that no deal was on the table.

And at the closing ceremony of the summit, Russia told the Latin American states to “refrain from behaving like children who want to get (their) hands on all the sweets and aren’t prepared to share them with everyone”, in response to their many complaints about the Brazilian presidency’s handling of the proceedings.

Ultimately, an agreement was gavelled through, despite these tensions.

Shared woes

Delegates at COP30 also found themselves experiencing the vagaries of climate change in Belem, where they endured both high temperatures, downpours, and freak events, including a fire.

That shared experience served as a way of driving home for many delegates from other parts of the world the challenges faced by their counterparts in Brazil.

Air-conditioners failed to function during the first week of the summit, and attendees had to endure the sweltering temperatures that have become a new norm for the town.

At a Nov 18 event on heat resilience, Brazil’s National Secretary of Urban Environment, Water Resources and Environmental Quality Adalberto Maluf told participants that locating the summit in Belem helped drive home the rising temperatures.

“And believe me, it’s impossible to live with,” he added. “Extreme weather events are hitting us too hard, but extreme heat is not something that we’ve prepared ourselves for.”

On Nov 20, the summit was literally on fire after a blaze broke out in a pavilion, torching the ceiling of the venue and stalling negotiations for six hours.

Shortly after I fled the venue with dozens of delegates, the Amazonian rain unloaded itself on us as we waited outside, unleashing a collective groan.

The moment of common panic became a metaphor for the world’s shared vulnerability to inclement weather.

Addressing delegates the day after the fire, COP30 president Andre Correa do Lago quoted the words of Mr Mohamed Adow, the director of think-tank Power Shift Africa, who penned a letter highlighting the collective spirit he witnessed after the fire.

“Even in a moment of chaos, one thing stood out: people from every corner of the world, different nations, creeds and affiliations, looked out for one another,” said Mr Adow. “Delegates helped strangers, staff guided crowds, and no one stopped to ask who belonged to which bloc before stepping in.”

“When faced with a crisis, cooperation wasn’t a slogan, but a human instinct in its rawest, truest form.”