Ana Palacio
Published in El Mundo, 22 November 2025
Ten years after the Paris Agreement, COP30 in Brazil seemed destined to be a historic milestone. “The COP of truth,” proclaimed President Lula da Silva. A slogan that aligned with the summit’s founding spirit, for it was in Rio where global climate awareness first took shape. Brazil—a continental-sized country with exceptional biodiversity, guardian of the Amazon, and a unique energy laboratory—appeared to be the ideal setting for a long-overdue stocktaking. Even the choice of Belém conveyed a pedagogical intention: to place the conversation at the symbolic heart of the green planet.
But Brazil’s “truth” has another face: the host is also one of the world’s largest oil producers—eighth globally (IEA, 2023), third in the Western Hemisphere after the United States and Canada—and Petrobras is breaking records. Brazil embodies like few others the contradiction burdening our era’s greatest challenge: a forest country and an oil country; a climate emblem propelled by a powerful fossil-fuel engine indispensable for its development. The truth of this COP begins there.
Thus, it has not been the summit that was anticipated. It will be remembered—not only for the interruptions and protests—but also for its lack of comfort, which the German chancellor clumsily highlighted when he remarked in a speech how pleased he was “to have left that place.” Lula had justified his motto by stressing how, “in the age of disinformation,” deniers “control algorithms, sow hatred, and spread fear. They attack institutions.” But the truth that has surfaced in Belém is different: sustainability no longer structures the international order. Climate multilateralism has lost centrality, and U.S.–China rivalry has slipped quietly into the debate.
The comparison with Dubai (COP28) is unavoidable—and painful. Back then, many criticized holding a COP in a petrostate as “putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.” Yet the UAE surprised with impeccable organization, strategic vision, and a program that integrated—for the first time without hypocrisy—the oil and gas sector. Moreover, the context was different: from Larry Fink’s annual letters to Western diplomacy, there still existed a broad consensus on the importance of the climate challenge.
Two years later, that consensus has faded. This COP takes place in a more fractured, anxious world, increasingly aware of the difficulties of the energy transition. Among influential actors—from Bill Gates to major investment funds—a troubling notion has taken hold: climate matters, but it no longer tops the global agenda. Electrification strains supply systems, artificial intelligence demands firm power, and half the planet continues to prioritize economic development over any abrupt emissions cuts. Added to this is deficient logistics that reduced delegations and hindered the work.
That said, the main shortcomings are geopolitical. The U.S. administration has projected itself only from the shadows, negatively. President Trump falls back on the country’s colossal fossil-fuel power (number one in oil and gas, and leader in LNG exports), calling decarbonization a scam. Washington battles internally over renewables, decouples energy policy from sustainability, and disengages—here too—from multilateralism. The vacuum left by this U.S. disdain for soft power is not filled by Europe. It is filled by China.
China has arrived with a sharp—if misleading—message. It proposes a simple equation: electrification is decarbonization. It presents itself as the champion of renewables; and in total installed capacity, it is. In 2023 it added more solar energy than all other countries combined and dominates between 70% and 95% of critical electrification supply chains, from rare earths to panels, turbines, and batteries. In other words, its bet is on an electrified world whose infrastructure it almost completely controls.
The U.S. administration has projected itself only from the shadows, negatively. President Trump falls back on the country’s colossal fossil-fuel power (number one in oil and gas, and leader in LNG exports),
But the reality of the Middle Kingdom is complex: more than 50% of its electricity depends on coal. In 2023 it authorized new coal plants at a pace of more than two per week, and in 2024 it reached the highest level of the decade. Its ambition for “green” leadership coexists with an intensification of the dirtiest fuel. As of today, China is not decarbonizing; it electrifies with its own coal and exports “renewable” products to the rest—electric cars being one of the clearest examples.
In Belém, this duality has stitched together the narrative. The United States: absent. China: hyper-present. Europe: mired in a “green catechism” that no longer convinces either internally or externally. The “Global South,” meanwhile, shows fatigue—fatigue from unfulfilled financial promises, moralistic speeches, and a model that in practice remains a luxury of the “North.” Africa insists: without gas, there is no industrialization. Asia highlights the deficit of realism amid a proliferation of new acronyms. Nothing left unresolved in Baku (COP29) regarding investments shows any sign of being finalized in Belém.
The only area where Brazil might achieve some progress is the Amazon: payments for ecosystem services, conservation mechanisms, incentives against illegal deforestation. But even here, an operational multilateral fund for tropical forests is not expected to take shape. At best, there will be conditional sums and future commitments.
Energy trends are moving elsewhere. Firm electricity is becoming the decade’s most coveted asset—an urgency accelerated by artificial intelligence. Gas is reaffirmed as a long-term transition fuel. Nuclear is returning. Clean molecules—hydrogen, advanced biofuels, and synthetic fuels—are emerging as essential for hard-to-electrify sectors that represent a significant share of our economies. The geopolitics of critical minerals shapes alliances, drives investment, and crystallizes power. What is needed, therefore, is a reasonable embrace of technological neutrality.
Energy trends are moving elsewhere. Firm electricity is becoming the decade’s most coveted asset—an urgency accelerated by artificial intelligence.
As for Europe, it remains trapped between rhetoric and reality. Governments are beginning to adopt a pragmatism that the European Commission has yet to internalize. The maximalism of the Green Deal is losing its audience, while complaints from the productive sector multiply. It does not appeal to the Global South, nor does it compete with China’s offerings. COP30 could have been the forum to recalibrate expectations, align ambitions, and reflect how the success of the process is now determined by the cracks in global power. It was not.
Like it or not, the energy transition will take place—but it demands a change of tone. As Lula said, we need a “COP of truth”; but a truth that is neither climate epic nor moral sermon. It is about accepting that decarbonization will be long, costly, hybrid, and profoundly unequal unless we correct course, and that it will require absolutely all decarbonization mechanisms. For a “COP of truth,” we must begin by recognizing that climate is no longer an isolated compartment: it is the arena where development, technology, and geopolitics intersect. And only from that realism—not from epic narrative—can we build the shared strategy humanity awaits.
دور وثائق تأمينات الحياة ذات الوحدات الاستثماريةفى الحفاظ على الاستقرار المالي للأسرة
تُعد وثائق تأمينات الحياة ذات الوحدات الادخارية أو الاستثمارية أحد أهم الحلول المالية المت…
