COP30: the circus returns to town

Round 30 of the UN’s annual climate summit COP has joined its predecessors as another farcical circus, this time months before it is even set to take place. Perhaps COP30 will be the star of the hypocritical show, as this year’s organisers have already plumbed new depths of cynicism in preparation for the event in November.

Preparations for this year’s summit, hosted in Brazil, began with no less than the construction of a four-lane highway leading to the host city of Belém, which has required the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of Amazon Rainforest to make room for it.

Dubbed ‘Avenida Liberdade’ (Liberty Avenue), the highway has cut through a ‘protected’ area home to 800 species of plants and fungi. But don’t fret! It will have cycle lanes, ‘wildlife crossings’, and solar-powered lighting!

As usual, COP’s double standards are a sick joke.

The circus comes to town

A new highway through the Amazon is just one of thirty projects the city has taken on in preparation for the summit. Others include the construction of two new five-star hotels, the expansion of the airport, and the redevelopment of the city’s port – known as the gateway to the Amazon River – to facilitate the arrival of cruise ships.

Preparations for this year’s summit, hosted in Brazil, began with no less than the construction of a four-lane highway leading to the host city of Belém / Image: Sintegrity, Wikimedia Commons

Choosing to host this year’s climate circus in a city with insufficient accommodation for the thousands of guests is no coincidence. Already, hotel prices have skyrocketed, with one Airbnb charging attendees $9,320 per day during the event, up from its normal rate of merely $11. In addition, COP30 offers the prospect of lucrative deals for real estate developers in the area, with over US$50 million in construction projects already announced.

It’s not the first time that the capitalist cynics hosting COP have been awarded huge contracts to hold the conference. Last year, when COP29 was held in Azerbaijan – whose economy is nearly entirely dependent on fossil fuels – the former son in law of the President received a $5.2 million deal to host guests at his ultra-luxury resort on the Caspian Sea, and took the opportunity to refurbish thousands of rooms.

Naturally discussing such serious matters as the existential crisis facing humanity would not have been possible without access to a private seven kilometre beach, 50 bars and restaurants, and 60 swimming pools. He did, of course, organise a symbolic tree planting ceremony in the resort’s new landscape park to mark the occasion.

As the capitalist vultures circle, hungry to get what they can from this year’s COP, the event has also attracted the bid of the world’s largest PR agency, Edelman, to advertise and organise branding for the summit. This is the same PR company that has worked with trade groups lobbying to roll back measures to protect the Amazon from deforestation, as well as the world’s biggest fossil fuel emitters including ExxonMobil and Shell.

Brazil’s President Lula, evidently proud to host the COP circus, has called himself an “environmental champion”. These are strong words from the President who is aiming to make Brazil the world’s fourth largest petrol producer (it is currently the eighth largest), seeing this as an essential pillar for economic growth. After an oil reservoir was found off the coast of Rio, dubbed the biggest find of the century so far, the self-proclaimed environmental champion declared that “God is Brazilian”.

Hypocrisy of the UN

The impotence of the UN in organising COP is hard to miss. The summit has achieved precisely nothing of note in the struggle against climate change since it was launched in 1995.

Now that the liberal world order is falling apart, the UN’s meagre efforts to coordinate a response to climate change have become even more irrelevant. Trump is again pulling back from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and, aware of the likelihood of the Trump administration stepping back, US diplomats at COP29 called on countries like China to “do more”.

The whole trend of world capitalism today is towards protectionism, as each national gang of capitalists attempts to extricate itself from the crisis of capitalism at the expense of its neighbours. We are now being treated to the atrocious spectacle of these gangsters applying the exact same logic with respect to the existential threat of climate change. They are rushing to blame their neighbours and shirk responsibility.

Blaming China shows another level of hypocrisy in the long list of examples from western imperialism. The parasitic US military alone is the single-largest consumer of energy in the US and the world’s largest institutional customer of petrol.

Trump is again pulling back from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and, aware of the likelihood of the Trump administration stepping back, US diplomats at COP29 called on countries like China to “do more” / Image: Gage Skidmore, Flickr

But the US isn’t alone. In the wake of Trump, the ‘progressive’ liberal Europeans are going down the exact same route, delaying environmental accountability laws, suspending fines for CO2 emission, and revising carbon targets downwards. All to boost the competitiveness, and thus the profits, of European capitalists.

Despite the talk about China ‘needing to do more’, the fact is that under a rationally planned socialist economy, Chinese industry would have a vital role to play in combating climate change. China has become an important part of the global economy for electrification and renewable energy, in 2024 its solar cell production exceeded current global demand.

Under capitalism, however, the solution to climate change becomes a problem. ‘Excess’ Chinese production adds to overproduction, glutting markets, and depressing profits. China becomes a competitor to crush.

The capitalists give up

While the ruling class attempts to greenwash their reputation through COP, sections of the establishment have simply abandoned even the facade of curbing climate change. The ‘Net-Zero Banking Alliance’ for instance, set up by the UN to encourage banks to work towards the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, has lost members such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup in recent months. HSBC has pushed back its target to ‘decarbonise’ its activity until 2050, and BP has shut down its ‘low carbon mobility team’ which was deemed no longer ‘commercially viable’.

In a context of global capitalist crisis and growing competition for markets, everything else goes to the wall, including the future of humanity, in the struggle to grab a greater market share and bigger profits.

Ironically, the Brazilian government itself even signed a letter to pressure the EU Commission to postpone its EU Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR), which would require companies to prove their commodities do not contribute to deforestation or forest degradation. There is a cold capitalist logic to it, given that Brazil’s exports to the EU which fall under the EUDR amount to billions of dollars in profits per year! This regulation has now been postponed until at least the end of 2025 due to backlash from politicians and the World Trade Organisation.

South Korea had unprecedented wildfires in March, as did California in January / Image: 경상남도 산림관리과, Wikimedia Commons

While the capitalists play with fire, for the rest of humanity the crisis is only becoming more severe. 2024 was the warmest year since records began, and the years from 2015-2024 are the warmest 10 years on record. This year, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest extent on record. South Korea had unprecedented wildfires in March, as did California in January.

Climate change is accelerating faster than scientists have expected, and it is resulting in more intense storms, droughts and deadlier heatwaves. While the capitalists wine and dine at COP, and slap each other on the back, the impact of their reckless destruction of the natural world is felt most severely by the oppressed and exploited masses.

Radicalised mood

This is the world that young people today are growing up in, and the vast majority are terrified at what their future will look like. Worldwide searches related to climate anxiety increased by a record 4590 percent between 2018 and 2023.

83 percent of surveyed 16-25 year olds from 10 countries agreed that “the adults in charge have failed to take care of the planet”, with one 16-year-old adding that “for us, the destruction of the planet is personal”.

Who is paying attention to COP anymore? If anyone is paying attention, the sick irony of this spectacle, this pantomime of profit-seeking that COP has become, can only serve to have one effect: to create revulsion, and to fan the flames of anger and resentment of the capitalist establishment.