NYT: ‘Oil Producers, but Maybe Not the Planet, Get a Win as UN Climate Talks End’ – Final Agreement only references ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels – Claim: ‘The U.S. has harmed itself by taking itself out of the process’

The final statement included plenty of warnings on the cost of inaction but few provisions for how the world might address dangerously rising global temperatures head-on.

A marathon series of frenetic Friday night meetings ultimately salvaged the talks in Belém, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. The meeting had teetered on the brink of total collapse, with oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia adamant that their key export not be singled out.

They were joined by many African and Asian countries that argued, as they have in earlier talks, that Western countries bear unique responsibility in paying for climate change because they are responsible for most historic greenhouse gas emissions.

But the weak deal heightened fears among many countries, particularly vulnerable island states, that the world is politically unwilling or unable to address climate change and its cascade of accompanying catastrophes.

The talks, known as COP30, were inauspicious from the get-go.

The U.S. government under President Trump effectively boycotted the annual gathering, thumbing its nose at multilateral climate action while simultaneously revving up the American fossil fuel industry and repealing federal support for renewable energy and electric vehicles. It was the first time in 30 years of climate talks that the United States had not attended.

And yet, in many ways, the disappointment of the summit was a result of America’s absence. While the United States under Democratic administrations has not always been a champion of ambitious climate action, it had consistently succeeded in one thing: Demanding that major economies with high greenhouse gas emissions, like China and Saudi Arabia, take on more responsibility. Without the United States, diplomats in Belém acknowledged, that enormous source of pressure was gone.

“The U.S. has harmed itself by taking itself out of the process,” said David Waskow, who leads the climate program at the World Resources Institute, a research group. “It’s not here to push a number of other economies. For example, China.”

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, declined to comment on the outcome of the talks, but said in a statement that Mr. Trump “has set a strong example for the rest of the world” by pursuing new fossil fuel development. ”President Trump has been clear,” she said. “He will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals that are killing other countries.”

China, currently the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter by far, played a limited role in Belém, choosing not to step into the leadership vacuum created by the absence of the United States.

Despite dominating the world’s clean energy industry, China avoided strong positions on most, if not all, of the main sticking points at the talks: reducing emissions, providing money to help poorer countries cope with climate change and contributions to a new Brazilian fund aimed at stemming deforestation. At China’s urging, the deal calls for nations to not use climate as an excuse to restrict international trade.

The mild resolution was also a rebuff of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had billed the event as a historic moment to make progress on climate action while showcasing the Amazon, often called the “lungs of the world” for the huge amount of planet-warning carbon dioxide the forest pulls out of the atmosphere.

In a speech that opened the talks, he called for negotiators to deliver a “road map” for a global transition away from fossil fuels. In the end, there was no such plan.

At talks two years ago in Dubai, the nations of the world already agreed on a “transition away” from fossil fuels by the middle of this century. Heeding President Lula’s suggestion, a group of countries — including Britain, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany and Kenya — had pushed in Belém for a detailed plan.

A simple acknowledgment of the Dubai deal is all they got. The deal says countries should implement their climate plans “taking into account the decisions” made in Dubai. Europeans said the language, while coded, was still a win.

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The two cruise ships were scheduled to depart on Saturday, increasing pressure on diplomats to finish the deal. Others found themselves unable to delay their departures because so few flights leave from Belém each day.

The purpose-built event space was only completed in the days before negotiators arrived. Near-daily torrential rains buffeted its flimsy walls, and as water poured into negotiating rooms, deafening claps of thunder raised goose bumps. On Thursday, as negotiations headed into their most intense final stretch, a fire broke out. The venue was evacuated, 13 people were treated for smoke inhalation and negotiators resorted to shuttle diplomacy, not between their offices at the conference but in Uber rides between one another’s hotels.

In the end, the talks were stymied by the widening gulf between the world’s biggest emitters and the poorest, most vulnerable countries that are pleading for a more ambitious collective response to climate change.

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