Climate Change and You: Will COP30 offer a breakthrough in fighting the climate crisis
In this edition, we discuss the importance of the COP30 climate summit, how the world has broken a heat safety barrier, India's vulnerability to extreme weather, and much more.
Climate Change and You is a fortnightly newsletter written by Bibek Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to the newsletter to get it directly in your inbox.
Dear reader,
It’s been exactly a year since Sayantan and I started this newsletter. I can’t believe just how fast time has flown by! The first edition of Climate Change and You was published on the eve of the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. As you read this, COP30 is underway at Belem, a city just on the outskirts of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
If last year’s climate conference was one of trepidation in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections, this year, we go into COP30 with a slightly clearer vision. After nine months of Trump, the world’s governments are expecting absolutely nothing from the US in the fight to end fossil fuel emissions that are heating the planet.
The hope is that in Brazil, a new kind of clarity will prevail, because, in the words of Brazil President Lula, “The era of fine speeches and good intentions is over. COP30 will be about action." That remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: this year’s conference has a lot on its plate, and to be deemed a success, it will have to show more tangible progress than just photo-ops for multilateralism.
STATE OF THE CLIMATE
The hope for 1.5 is fading fast
Exactly 10 years ago, the world signalled that climate change is a serious threat to life on the planet, and with the historic 2015 Paris Agreement, put into place the current international mechanism for combating the crisis. The foundation of the Paris deal was the agreement that atmospheric heating had to be kept below 2 degrees Celsius (above pre-industrial levels) by 2100, and that nations would strive to further limit this to below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The latter is the true heating barrier, beyond which life on the planet will face all kinds of nightmare scenarios.
We have missed the 1.5 degree target. After two successive years of annual global temperatures being between 1.5 and 1.6 degrees Celsius hotter, scientists are clear that we are going to overshoot the 1.5-degree barrier sooner than anticipated. Indeed, the average global temperature is about 1.4 degrees hotter right now. And already, coral reefs are nearly dead, catastrophic cyclonic storms are hitting all around the world, and Antarctic glaciers are melting at a shocking rate.
Although it is possible to first overshoot and then reduce heating to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, this would require an almost immediate end to fresh fossil fuel emissions, and depending on unproven tech solutions like carbon capture and storage to remove the tremendous concentration of planet-heating greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere.
A group of scientists for the think tank Climate Analytics published a report earlier this month outlining a possible pathway—the report calls it the ‘Highest Possible Ambition’ pathway—by which global heating can be limited to a peak of 1.7 degrees Celsius of warming by 2050 and then brought down to about 1.2 degrees of warming by 2100. Broadly speaking, the report states that this can be achieved by focusing on four goals:
1. Renewable energy powering 66.67% of global electricity needs by 2050.
2. A fossil fuel-free global economy by 2070, with coal phased out in the 2040s, gas in the 2050s and oil in the 2060s.
3. Finding a way to rapidly scale up carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies on a commercial scale by 2050.
4. An urgent focus on cutting methane emissions.
THE NEWS IN BRIEF
-Bill Gates created some unhelpful controversy before COP30 by claiming a false dichotomy between urgent climate finance and global poverty alleviation. Many have called him out on this, including in this brilliant and scathing piece by George Monbiot in The Guardian.
-At COP30, the subject of climate finance will loom large in discussions. This is a crucial point, because Asian countries need this long-promised, yet undelivered means to make the green transition, as well as for adapting to climate impacts. The IMF’s Krishna Srinivasan and the CEEW’s Arunabha Ghosh make the case.
-How do people around the world view the annual COPs? And how hopeful are they that these annual conferences will solve the climate crisis? My Mint colleague Manjul Paul analyses some recent global surveys.
CLIMATE CHANGE TRACKER
Global ambition to fight climate change is ‘off target’
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published the Emissions Gap Report before the COP this year. This annual report measures the gap between nationally stated commitments (NDCs) to reduce fossil fuel emissions and the actual actions required to make a difference. The report also suggests ways to bridge this gap. This year’s report finds that global ambition is, as it puts it, ‘off target’.
Annual growth in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is breaking new records, with CO2 emissions rising by 2.3% between 2023 and 2024. If all current NDCs are met, the report states, by 2100, the world would heat up by 2.3-2.5 degrees Celsius. Current energy policies will see the world heating up by about 2.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. If anything, the Emissions Gap Report shows a woeful decrease in global ambition. It should be noted that only 64 countries have submitted their updated NDC as of the time of writing, and India isn’t one of them.
Over 2023-24, India recorded the largest increase in total emissions, 165 MtCo2e (million tonnes of CO2 equivalents), with China coming next at 126 MtCo2e. India’s growth rate in emissions is the second highest at (3.6%), behind Indonesia (4.6%), but both India's and Indonesia’s per capita emissions were below the world average of 6.4 tCO2e (tonnes of CO2 equivalent).
PRIME NUMBER
832,000
A new report from the Berlin-based development, environmental and human rights organisation Germanwatch has found that over 832,000 people worldwide lost their lives over the past 30 years due to extreme weather events caused by climate change. The Climate Risk Index 2026 was presented at COP30 on 11 November.
The report takes stock of the period between 1995 and 2024, and finds that over 9,700 extreme events caused a vast number of fatalities as well as direct economic losses worth $4.5 trillion (inflation-adjusted).
Based on the findings, the report ranks the most affected countries into two groups: a) countries most affected by “highly unusual extreme events" and b) countries affected by “recurring extreme events". Overall, out of the 10 worst-affected countries over the past 30 years, India ranks ninth. The report also ranks India high in the second category of countries affected by recurring extreme events.
This is what the report has to say: “India had high absolute fatalities and high economic losses…the country has faced various extreme weather events, including floods, heat waves, cyclones, and drought. Floods and landslides resulting from heavy monsoons have displaced millions and damaged agriculture, and cyclones have devastated coastal areas, underscoring India’s diverse climate risks."
BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Climate Diplomat by Peter Betts
If you ever wondered what really goes on in the high-stakes negotiation world of international climate diplomacy—like at the COPs, for instance—then The Climate Diplomat will give you a ringside view of proceedings. It is written by Peter Betts, one of England’s leading civil servants and climate diplomats, and was published earlier this year. Betts passed away in 2023 while working on this memoir.
As a climate journalist, I am privy to how countries, their representatives, and fossil fuel lobbyists stay up nights haggling over every comma, every “should" and “would" before coming to a consensus. But Betts’s book is an insider’s guide that pulls back the curtain on how deals that will decide the fate of humanity are made. The best bits in the book are about the Paris Agreement and how those accords were agreed upon. At the time, Betts was the UK’s main climate negotiator and was also leading the EU’s team. This book is as riveting as any political thriller.
So that’s it from me this week, dear reader. Sayantan Bera will be back in a fortnight with the next edition of Climate Change and You. I hope we will be able to bring you good news!
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