Another COP done and dusted. Another plaintive burst of post-hoc rationalizations that the outcome from November’s meeting in the Brazilian city of Belém wasn’t as bad as it seemed. ‘Climate multilateralism’ is alive and well, we are assured, and ‘the deniers are losing the fight,’ according to Ed Miliband, Britain’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
The annual Conference of the Parties is supposed to be the world’s great moment of climate diplomacy, and some positive outcomes did emerge from Belém: a tripling of the amount of money to help poorer countries adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change; progress on a Just Transition Mechanism for the mining and processing of critical minerals; and a new Tropical Forests Forever Facility to combat deforestation.
