by Dr John Telesford, Deputy Principal, TAMCC and Research Associate, Institute for Island Studies, UPEI, Canada
The Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP 30) should close on Friday, 21 November 2025.
For 2 weeks, country leaders, envoys and other leaders, youth, academics, and protesters gathered in Belém, Brazil, for the 30th Meeting of the Parties. These meetings are essentially negotiations on a global scale aimed at finding solutions to the wicked problem of climate change. However, after 30 years of talks and talks and talks, the pressure and impacts of a changing climate continue to hurt our societies, environment and economies.
Two main overarching strategies are employed to deal with climate change: mitigation which is to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), most common of them carbon dioxide and adaptation, which includes the implementation of policies and actions aimed at coping with the impacts of climate change. Over the decades, little progress was made on either of these strategies, especially on mitigation, as climate-related hazards continue to wreak havoc around the World. Most familiar to us here in the Caribbean are intensified hurricanes, such as Melissa and Beryl, that devastated Jamaica and Grenada (Carriacou), respectively.
So, while emissions continue to grow, with few fluctuating reductions, our leaders are struggling to agree on the mitigation of emissions, the main cause of anthropogenic (man-made) climate change. At COP 30 in Belém, 83 nations called to end fossil fuels use. Of keen note in the list are most island states, especially the majority of Caribbean nations. These nations include fossil fuel-based economies such as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, which begs the question: Are these calls to transition our island economies from fossil fuels genuine?
Notwithstanding this question, a draft of the flowery text, which is the main agreement of the negotiations for the COP30 was released on Friday, 21 Noember (Version 21/11/25: 3:00). The text titled: “Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilisation against climate change” (Mutirão means collective or joint effort) does not include any mention on the transition away from fossil fuels. The transition away from fossil fuels was a key outcome of COP 28 two years ago, but attempts to make it stick at the next COP in 2024 failed.
As this essay is written, there is breaking news from the BBC headlined: “A lot of fighting’: Fossil fuel row breaks out at UN climate summit.” Countries, including the 83 that called for the text to be included in the agreement, are fighting against other countries with strong fossil fuel ties. Of keen interest in this release is this comment: “small island nations may agree to a weaker deal on fossil fuels if they secured more finance to adapt to the changes in their countries caused by rising temperatures.” A trade-off that small islands seem to prefer, as their GHG emissions are small.
But COP 30 is heating up as it comes to an end, and in true COP fashion, the meeting would run into significant overtime. I am not going to hold my breath on this one, because COP overtime can run into hours; the longest overrun has been 44 hours. However, I will continue to monitor to see what the final text would be, when the fire is out and the final gavel falls.
Stay tuned.