In the aftermath of COP30 in Brazil: The limits to intergovernmental processes

COP30 in Belém was billed as the moment the world would finally shift from pledges to real climate action. Instead, negotiators left the Amazon with no agreement to phase out fossil fuels and little progress on finance. As the rainforest strained to host yet another global gathering, the world’s political will once again fell short. The thirtieth conference of parties (COP30) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ended a week ago in Belém, Brazil. The expectations were high, as they always are, so the outcome felt that much more disappointing. The host country had called this “implementation COP,” implying that it was time to move from talk to action. Instead, most observers think that any earlier progress was actually reversed. Notably, the final conference document makes no mention of phasing out fossil fuels, which after all are the main culprit of global warming. Even in the earlier COPs, held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Azerbaijan, both petrostates that were seen as slowing down or even undermining the efforts to decarbonize the world, the importance of moving away from fossil fuels made it into the final text. With regard to deforestation, while more funding was promised for preventing the decimation of forests, countries failed to agree on a plan to stop the destruction and instead decided to rely on voluntary commitments. The location at the mouth of the Amazon, was symbolic and Brazil had emphasized prevention of deforestation as a central issue to prevent climate change. The Amazon occupies an important place in the minds of environmentalists as a symbol of a pristine forest whose environment and Indigenous Peoples are threatened by logging, agricultural expansion, destruction, and greed. The Amazon has been called the lungs of the world and, while this may be exaggerated, its global role in regulating water and climate and as a repository of biodiversity cannot be denied. The COP saw the presence of a record number of Indigenous peoples – at least 3,000 of them – and Brazil agreed to demarcate 10 new areas reserved for them. Regretfully, the COP itself brought pressures on the Amazon’s fragile ecosystem as thousands of delegates, activists and other hangers on congregated in Belém. There were concerns that the massive event itself would cause at least local environmental harm. For example, some activists expressed concern about the construction of Avenida Liberdade, a four-lane highway built through a protected area close to the city. Even if the avenue is presented as a “sustainable highway” that includes wildlife crossings, solar lighting and bike lanes, there is still a risk of fragmentation of the forest ecosystem, and providing easier access for loggers and poachers. A central player on the global scene, the United States did not even participate, as President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Paris Agreement, not for the first time. At a speech at the UN in September, Trump called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated in the world.” But the US is not alone. The Europeans continue playing along, but with reduced commitments to actual funding – partly because of the pressures Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has caused for European countries to expand their defense spending. Similarly, many developing countries have reprioritized and reduced their commitments to combating climate change. This is understandable, given that there are still over 3 billion people in the world living in poverty, according to the World Bank, and the developing countries’ contributions to climate change have been marginal compared with the rich countries. Consequently, they call for resource transfers from the global North to the South to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to leapfrog to latest clean technologies. For years now, the traditional Western donors have placed their faith in the private sector, having realized that there is no way that the public in their countries would accept transferring the required amounts of funding to developing countries. They just put in catalytic funding by way of guarantees derisking private sector investment. After all, the private sector is richer than ever. This is called “blended finance.” This approach has so far realized only limited success. The private sector financing has materialized only in a few sectors where there is a clear business case to be made, such as renewable energy (more on that later). The most vulnerable and least developed countries – nearly all of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa – see very little private sector investment in any field, let alone environmental protection. There is an obvious reason for this. The markets are small and institutions are weak. Consequently, investment is risky and the profit potential low. When I worked in the Global Environment Facility, I heard from private sector representatives that, what a public funding organization like the GEF can most usefully do is to create the policy, regulatory and legal frameworks that level the playing field and make investment more secure. The COPs have a history of generating unfulfilled promises. The demands for funding multiply and new funding mechanisms, such as the Loss and Damage Fund, are established with great fanfare but little actual funding. I asked one of the European government delegates why do they always go along with the demands when they know there’s a snowball’s chance in hell to get the required additional funding. Her response was, because otherwise the developing countries will march out of the negotiations. At the end of each COP, there is a communique celebrating the success that was achieved in the final moment. This is theater that creates expectations and gives an illusion of progress. This time around, there wasn’t even much of a pretense of success. How bad is it? The clock is ticking on curbing global warming to the 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as stipulated in the 2015 Paris Agreement. So far, the record doesn’t look promising as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. While most countries have committed to moving towards net-zero emissions, the timetables are not at sync with the Paris targets. Still, not everything is bleak, even as the intergovernmental processes falter. While climate proponents have attributed the positive changes that we have seen in recent year to the Paris Agreement, there is little evidence that the policies agreed upon within the COPs would have actually made a concrete difference. Instead, there are other forces at play. Roger Pielke Jr. points out that “business as usual” scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are highly unlikely to materialize – and have been for a long while. So the actual likely future warming is not +4-6oC by the end of the century, as predicted by the most extreme scenarios, but rather perhaps +2.3-2.5oC. This is bad enough but it is a far cry from the worst-case scenarios. Whether this spells catastrophe depends on many factors, including where you live and how well prepared you are. Adaptation to climate change has gained much attention, and increased funding, in past years. Ahead of the Belém COP, Bill Gates angered many climate activists saying that global warming doesn’t mean the end of civilization. He emphasized that we need to adapt and be better prepared. He also noted that development is adaptation. He’s got a good point there. Many places will suffer; but the better prepared we are the less we’ll suffer. And wealthier places are inevitably safer than the poor corners of the world. Some places will become hard to live in, while others may even benefit. Sea levels will rise threatening especially small islands and low-lying coastal countries. Droughts, water shortages and weather anomalies affect most poor countries and people in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Just today, Reuters reported on the rising death toll from a strong cyclone that devastated Southeast Asia, attributing the storm to climate change. Storms may intensify due to warmer ocean temperatures. However, the conclusion from IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report on the increasing frequency of storms is less conclusive. Heat waves are already killing more people than any other climatic hazard. Reducing deforestation will be very important, as is protecting coasts. The oceans and forests are the biggest carbon sinks on the planet. If well managed, they have great potential to regulate global climate. Therefore, loss of the Amazon rainforest – apart from its devastating effects on biodiversity and the lives of Indigenous Peoples – would be disastrous. The other piece of good news is that energy transition is on the way. Despite the best efforts of the US administration, the forward march of renewable energy is now unstoppable. The technologies –whether solar, wind or other – are progressing more rapidly than anyone dared to hope, due to improved technologies and sinking prices. Storage technology that has long been a bottleneck is improving by leaps and bounds thanks to new batteries. Already now, a third of global electricity is produced by renewable energy, and it is projected to grow rapidly. This is largely thanks to massive developments in the two most populous countries in the world, China and India. There is no doubt that renewables are the future. The markets guarantee this. A friend from West Virginia told me how former coal miners are now flocking to wind farms, still proud to be producing the much-needed energy to fuel development in their state and far beyond. The global leadership in the environment – as in many other fields – is now assumed by China. In fact, it is being handed over to it on a silver platter as the US voluntarily dismantles its science and technology capacities; the basis of America’s leadership over much of the past century. China is still suffering from terrible pollution and is still building up its fossil fuel production capacity to meet its burgeoning energy demand. At the same time, it is building more renewable energy than any other country in history. In the first five months of this year, China has installed five times more renewable energy generation capacity than California’s entire grid from any source. China is also now the leading manufacturer of electric vehicles. It is true that China has taken the dubious first place as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. This is due to its rapid development and the unprecedented poverty reduction that the country has achieved since the death of Mao Tse Tung. China is a big country and its emissions per capita are just 60% of Americans’. Similarly, in an historical perspective, China’s total emissions pale in comparison with those of the countries that industrialized earlier, in Europe and North America. We will not be able to thrive in a hothouse world, using up all our natural resources. The inequality, apart from being morally wrong, is neither sustainable nor conducive to social and political stability. I do believe, however, that the transition to a more sustainable development model is inevitable, as argued by Rob D. van den Berg in his book, Evidence for Hope: The Emerging Sustainability Revolution. The transition will also encompass the USA. How fast it takes place is partly determined by the political decisions made. I have argued elsewhere that we can’t only rely on renewable energy and EVs, but should also look at ways of capturing carbon from the atmosphere. It is now inevitable that we will surpass the goals embedded in the Paris Agreement. However, climate change doesn’t have to be the end of the world leading to global chaos, but it will require proactive management and adaptation to its impacts. And it will require reducing inequality, both within societies and between countries and continents. If COP30 proved anything, it is that diplomacy alone won’t save us. Real progress will depend on countries investing in resilience, accelerating the energy transition, and confronting inequality – not waiting for perfect consensus. With rapid advances in clean energy and growing calls for equity, the tools for a safer climate future already exist. It’s up to all of us to work towards this goal.

The Wild Side of Japan

 

Beyond the neon skylines, crowded subways, and hi-tech innovations lies another Japan – a wilder world of mountains, forests, and rice paddies that reveal the country’s deep relationship with nature.

The hills are shaped like traffic cones, except that they’re green. Many of them reach up to over 1,000 meters; the tallest ones nearly 3,000 meters. They stand on both sides of the road – Akita Expressway – blocking any view beyond them except for the sky, which that day was overcast. The forested slopes look virtually impenetrable. There are signs warning of mountain goats, tanuki-raccoon dogs – and bears – along the roadside.

Tohoku, consisting of the northern prefectures on the main island of Honshu, has been called the wild side of Japan. If Japan conjures up images of avant-garde high-rises, hi-tech attractions, and people in dark suits or outrageous anime costumes rushing at subway stations, then you should visit Tohoku. It is another world up here.

We were speeding through the mountains in Kikuchi-san’s Daihatsu Cocoa overtaking many larger vehicles as she pushed the little car to 120 kph. Mami, which is her name, is a hotelier and restaurateur in Iwate and a dear old friend of my wife Yoko. She was taking us from their mutual hometown of Oshu to Akita City in the adjacent prefecture with the same name. The road cut across the north-south mountain range that forms the backbone of Honshu, from Iwate Prefecture in the east to Akita Prefecture in the west, from the Pacific ocean to the Sea of Japan coast. Cutting through the mountains can be taken literally: there are about ten tunnels, most of them short but a few about 2.5 km long. Altogether, one spends more than 10 km driving under the huge mountain masses. What an engineering feat it has been to construct these tunnels!

In between, the road rises to higher ground and occasional bridges cross fertile valleys in the shadow of the steep mountains. These valleys are intensively utilized for farming. Small clusters of farmhouses are surrounded by green rice paddies.

Akita Expressway cuts east to west through the mountains (photo by author).

Rice is the staple in Japan. But it is also more than just food, as the anthropologist Emiko Tierney Ohnuki explains in her book, Rice as Self: “As a metaphor of self, rice paddies are our ancestral land, our village, our region, and ultimately, our land, Japan. They also represent our pristine past before modernity and foreign influences contaminated it” (p. 10). Later she explains, “The notion that each rice grain has a soul and that rice is alive in the hull are fundamental to the meanings assigned to rice in Japanese culture…” (p. 55). The rice paddies prevail even as the countryside empties of people and the farming population ages. This phenomenon also explains the widespread resistance to foreign rice by Japanese consumers, even as rice prices have soared this year and been a major contributor to rising inflation.

Tohoku, with its relatively cold climate, has experienced several rice famines in the recorded history, many of them linked to natural disasters, such as cooling climate after volcanic eruptions. Latest in 1934, the rice crop in Iwate failed due to cold weather, causing many poor farm families to send their children to Tokyo and beyond as laborers, or to work in the water trade, or to join the military, all of which contributed to the pre-war unrest. In better times, Tohoku rice is arguably the best in the world, thanks to the clean environment and water.

Japan’s environmental history is at best checkered. The case of mercury poisoning in Minamata on the southwestern island of Kyushu starting in the late 1950s is perhaps the most famous incident of industrial pollution with dramatic consequences to people’s health. But there were plenty of others where the environment and human health were sacrificed to the altar of progress in post-war Japan, such as the Itai-Itai disease caused by cadmium poisoning discovered in 1967 or the PCB poisoning in and around Kitakyushu the year after. Opposition to industrial pollution was silenced, communities divided, and victims shunned, as the country focused on rebuilding and getting rich at any cost.

Since those years, much has been done to improve the environment. Environmental consciousness is high: practically no one litters, recycling is religiously practiced, and the cities are clean. Air and water pollution are now controlled. The largest urban conglomerations – Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto – are concentrated in the Central and Western Kanto and Kansai areas.

The Japanese culture has been largely based on the desire to control nature. This has its traditional expression in Japanese gardens in which nature has been forced into beautiful, but artificial depictions of, well, idealized nature. The tortured, but gorgeous bonsai trees are another example. For many Japanese, nature is at its most beautiful when it is well regimented.

Another factor playing into the tendency to control nature is the prevalence of natural hazards. Japan consists of a chain of volcanic islands in the middle of the largest ocean of the world, the Pacific. The country is prone to earthquakes that happen daily (although larger ones are of course rarer). Despite its name, the ocean frequently acts in ways anything but pacific, sending typhoons and tsunamis to the coasts. The eruption of the iconic volcano, Mt. Fuji, is long overdue. If a natural hazard exists, Japan is bound to have it in quantities. Consequently, Japan is also the best prepared nation towards natural hazards: even massive earthquakes tend to have relatively few victims.

There are exceptions, the most prominent one in recent history being the earthquake that hit Tohoku on the Pacific side on March 11, 2011. The 9.1 magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami flattened out much of the Sanriku coastal zone in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures and killed almost 20,000 people. The tsunami also caused the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant resulting in the worst nuclear accident in human history, barring the Chernobyl accident in current-day Ukraine in 1986.

Up in in the mountains between Iwate and Akita, nature is largely unspoiled thanks to a low density of human population, little urbanization and even less industry. That in itself is largely the result of the mountainous topography, the harsh winters, and the relatively short growing season. Yet, virtually all flat valleys are under cultivation.

The topography is also what has saved Japan’s forests. This is one of the most forested countries in the world outside of the tropics, with 67% of land area covered in forests. Japan in the post-World War II years extensively replanted forests, with species like sugi and the Japanese cypress. According to environmental historian Catherine Knight, about 40% of Japan’s forests are currently man-made plantations, not naturally occurring ecosystems.

The forests would most certainly have been decimated had it been easier and more economical to exploit them. Instead, it is said that Japan has outsourced deforestation, especially to Southeast Asia where its companies have long maintained logging operations thereby saving the forests on the home islands.

What is evident even up here in Tohoku is the careful management of natural hazards and nature itself. Mountainsides where roads cross them are protected by engineering works to prevent landslides, which can be caused by earthquakes or just erosion of the slopes.

Japan has been referred to as the “construction state.” The Ministry of Construction and the numerous big and small companies operating in the sector wield significant power. They provide substantial employment and spend remarkable amounts of money as they fix the real and sometimes self-created problems.

In the decades following World War II, most rivers in Japan, notably near urban centers on the Kanto Plain, were straightened and channelized in concrete to control natural flow and meandering. Contrary to expectations, however, these works meant for flood control often had the opposite effect, while also harming ecosystems along the rivers. The government, to a degree, recognized the mistakes and mended its ways, leading the River Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to reverse engineer riverine habitats since the 1990s. Today, Tohoku’s largest river – and to me the dearest – Kitakami-gawa flows quite freely from its origins at Mt. Nanashigure to the Pacific Ocean.

But the time of the construction follies is not over. Following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed virtually all small fishing ports on the Sanriku coast, many survivors left. Especially younger people moved to Sendai and other cities. Few of the refugees had any intention to return to the coast. Given this and the fact that the tsunami threat will not disappear, to me the sensible thing would have been to develop the coastline to an area for nature and recreation. Instead, the government has invested tremendous amounts of resources to massive earth moving and construction works to raise the coastline, in the process destroying much of the nature literally flattening hills. This for a handful of mostly old people who may return. That just demonstrates the natural tendency of the authorities and the construction industry to find an engineering solution to any problem.

Driving through the central mountains, however, these problems are far away. Yet, just like Sanriku coast, the countryside in the remote sparsely populated areas is further emptying. Most of the young people have moved to cities and the small farmers have few heirs to take over their plots (although there is a small back-to-the-land movement driving some younger urbanites to a more organic lifestyle in the rural areas). One might think that depopulation might lead to rewilding of the land – a popular concept in some parts of Europe – and there may be some benefits to the wildlife. However, the traditional farming system – satoyama – is surprisingly well adapted to the natural ecosystem. The rice paddies themself are ecotopes of their own, with a vibrant fauna and flora. There are studies that suggest that losing this agricultural landscape is a threat to the biodiversity that has evolved in them.

Japan is making measurable progress on climate and environmental fronts and is rolling out a nature-positive economy strategy, which includes the “30 by 30” conservation target, aiming to protect 30% of land and marine regions by 2030. Yet, challenges remain, not least as global temperatures rise affecting climate and weather in this island nation.

Tohoku’s rugged landscapes remind us that Japan’s story is not just one of futuristic glory and control of the environment, but of coexistence with nature, which offers lessons in resilience and balance that Japan, and the world, will need more than ever.

You haven't seen the last of meat

 

While veganism trends in headlines and health blogs, the global appetite for meat remains strong.

On Father’s Day evening we walked around in our Maryland neighborhood. Every restaurant serving steak was full and some even had long lines outside. Wait, but isn’t everyone turning vegan? I thought people these days watch you disapprovingly if you order a steak. Well, no, not really. For better or worse, meat consumption is on the rise.

It is sometimes said that, apart from not bringing new people to the planet, the best thing an individual can do to fight climate change is to stop eating meat. Raising cattle is the least effective way of producing calories. It takes about 6 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef. That’s not an efficient conversion ratio. We hear that the world’s largest wetland, Pantanal, and the Amazon rainforest are being decimated by the expansion of farms and cattle ranching. Both areas are reservoirs of incredible and unique biological diversity. Only three agricultural commodities—beef, palm oil, and soybeans—are responsible for almost 80% of tropical deforestation. Most of the soy isn’t served as edamame or go to make tofu, but to feeding the farm animals.

Pork and lamb are not much better than beef. Chicken have a smaller carbon footprint, as might be suspected from their tiny scrawny feet, but there are more than 26.5 billion of them on the planet (that’s more than 3 chicken for each human being alive today). We also read in magazines about how we will in the future get our protein from insects and seaweed. And there are all the medical studies linking consumption of red meat and especially processed meats to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and general unhappiness.

These facts have led a number of people to decide that they should become vegetarian. Many of these people think that also other people should follow their virtuous example. There’s not only the climate to protect but there’s the ethical problem of how we treat our non-human relatives. Most of us have friends who have become vegetarian, even vegan, and they like to share their reasons for doing so and why you should join the club.

But is the vegetarian wave really happening? Data does not suggest so. The US industry’s Power of Meat report documents that total meat sales in the country grew to $104.3 billion in 2024, which translated to a 2.3% increase in the volume sold. According to the same survey, 73% of consumers consider meat to be a healthy choice.

Worldwide trends are similar, but with important nuances. Globally, meat consumption grew by less than 1% between 2008 and 2017. This growth seems to have leveled off in most of the rich world and even declining in a few countries, such as Belgium, the countries of the northern Mediterranean, and Canada. This most likely reflects changing attitudes due to environmental and health concerns. There’s also a broader trend from red meat towards chicken.

The picture is quite different elsewhere. The traditional beef countries, like Argentina and Brazil are still growing their consumption, but not as much as neighboring Colombia and Peru. Carnivorous habits seem to be spreading in much of the developing world as a consequence of rising standards of living. China, with its more than 1 billion people, leads this trend, but other Asian countries, like Vietnam, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are increasing their consumption even faster. Similarly in African countries like Malawi, Chad, Congo, Benin and Guinea consumption of meat has risen significantly in recent years.

The only places outside of the above-mentioned wealthy countries where meat consumption is down are countries where poverty, conflict and fragility have rendered large portions of the population highly vulnerable and unable to afford meat. These include Lebanon, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Madagascar and Niger, as well as Venezuela where policy failure has rendered meat unaffordable to most people.

What can we conclude from this? First, the vegetarian trends may not be as pervasive as one might assume from the media coverage. They may be mostly limited to wealthy people concerned with planetary health and animal welfare, as well as their own healthiness. Of course, the world’s most populous country, India, is predominantly vegetarian. In my prosperous slice of the Mid-Atlantic seaboard, vegetarian and vegan restaurants seem to be thriving, although casual observation would suggest that the clientele are predominantly women.

For poorer Americans, the cheapest way of filling their stomachs is visiting a fast-food restaurant where burgers and fries effectively provide plentiful calories. Besides, in many neighborhoods it is very difficult to even get fresh vegetables. These food deserts only have corner bodegas serving low-income and often historically marginalized populations.

As for people in poor countries, can we really expect them to forego meat after we in the West have overindulged in it for decades? For many people meat has been—and still remains—a luxury. Now when incomes are rising, people can finally afford to eat what they want and add tasty tidbits to their nutrition. Then we come and tell them that they shouldn’t.

This is a parallel to other ways in which we in the rich West are trying to limit greenhouse gas emissions by our brethren in poor countries that never contributed much to climate warming in the first place. Rising living standards call for increased energy use. Turning vegetarian is still pretty much an obsession of those of us who can afford to shop for alternatives and worry about food-related health issues. I for one should definitely reduce my calorie intake.

My prediction is that meat consumption will continue to increase for some time to come. Note that this is not what I would personally wish would happen but, given the still growing world population, especially in countries where incomes must rise to give people a dignified level of existence, it would appear inevitable.

So what can be done?

As with energy, it is a matter of environmental justice that it should be us in the rich West who should first cut down on our consumption before asking Asians and Africans to do so. There are also ways of reducing consumption without entirely changing our diet. These include deciding to have a day or two every week when you do not eat meat. Or simply reducing the portions. The Japanese eat meat regularly but it’s rarely the largest part of any meal, usually mixed with vegetables, rice and noodles. The move towards chicken is also a step that is easy to take.

This is yet another dimension of the climate dilemma. As I’ve written before, behavior change is highly unlikely to stop climate change. It would require sacrifices from lots of people who would have to cut down on, not only meat but many other favorite conveniences. We would also have to deal with the aspirations of those billions of people who today don’t have enough for a fulfilling life. Governments have signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement but few are achieving the promised emissions cuts.

We thus need to move on several fronts and not put our eggs into one basket. This would include adopting techniques that would help us increase the productivity of oceans while they would at the same time absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Plans such as seaweed farming could provide multiple benefits, from increasing carbon storage to enhancing the productivity of fisheries. This would, of course, have to be done carefully not to cause unintended consequences to the environment or to local people and their livelihoods.

Until sustainable options become affordable and accessible for all, we can't point fingers and lecture others. The path to a cooler planet shouldn’t be a guilt trip. The good news is that change doesn’t have to mean sacrificing everything we like. We just have to be smarter. Less meat is a smart choice for our health and that of the planet. Maybe we will also learn to love seaweed. After all, millions of Asians already enjoy it daily.

And by the way, no steak for the dad on Father’s Day. We ended up having dinner in a restaurant where everything is plant-based, locally sourced, and certifiably healthy. At least we had most of the restaurant for ourselves.

[Originally published on https://juhauitto.substack.com on 19 June 2025.]