The conference ends with a score of 0-0 with the taste of defeat. Understands

But, as we know, the COP ended without signaling the necessary end to the use of fossil fuels, which account for 80% of human carbon dioxide emissions. This is equivalent to a conference on lung cancer that ends without mentioning cigarettes. Or, to stay on the soccer field, play the World Cup without the ball.

In 30 editions of the COP, the term “fossil fuels” appeared only once in the final text, in 2023, at the Dubai meeting. Is the inability to return to the matter to implement the decision made at that time our incompetence? Perhaps, but that is primarily a limitation of pluralism.

The Conference of the Parties is an event organized by the United Nations – and at the United Nations, decisions are made by consensus. This, for example, is what supports the US economic embargo on Cuba, even though the issue has been voted on 30 times in the General Assembly (in the last vote, which took place in October, 165 countries lost in favor of ending the embargo versus seven countries – the US, Israel, Hungary, Argentina, North Macedonia, Paraguay and Ukraine, which objected). A year ago, the score was even more unfair: 184 to 2.

In COP, the logic is the same. Never mind that 82 countries have supported the roadmap to end fossil fuels. The idea will never be implemented without the approval of the 22 Arab group countries, many of which depend entirely on oil production. And let’s face it: It will be difficult to convince Saudi Arabia to reduce meat consumption to prevent a new environmental disaster as far away as Rio Grande do Sul.

For better or worse, the planet has no president. Sovereign states. That is why, with rare exceptions, all COPs tend to have a disappointing outcome. In the words of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, a policeman can only be good enough at most.

The seed for the emergence of COPs was ECO92 in Rio. In that distant year of 1992, the end of the last Cold War gave humanity a certain hope for cooperation (to the extent that countries were able to work together to reduce the hole in the ozone layer). Of course, multilateralism did have problems, but it did not depend on the likes of Trump, Netanyahu, Meles, and Orban working toward the current democratic collapse.

Lula described the COP30 as a “conference of truth.” The truth is that the multilateral system that brought us here is in crisis. On the one hand, it is worth asking whether it is necessary to keep this system breathing on machines (in the COP, it was on the verge of death). On the other hand, this is probably still the best system we have.

There are two pieces of good news, at least. The first relates to Colombia’s invitation to countries to attend a sort of “parallel Conference of the Parties” in April next year, where the end of fossil fuels will be the starting point, not the arrival. The second concerns us. If sovereignty limits the extent of the possibility of pressure on states from the outside to the inside, it at least preserves, for the population, the ability to pressure states from the inside to the outside.

That is why it is up to us to put pressure on the powers that be. For this reason, it is important that we are outraged by the reduced veto of the Devastação PL project, or by the agricultural sector’s attempt to overturn the demarcation of indigenous lands, to name just two events that occurred this week. The game remains open.

By ordering the cancellation of 56 of Lula’s 63 objections to the environmental licensing law, Davi Alcombre has done a disservice to the president, the constitution, and any climate ambition in the country. For example, lack of control over the rural environmental record may reverse the downward trend in deforestation. Marina Silva warned that the government should take legal action (it is not advisable to rely on the support of AGU Jorge Mesías, who needs Alcolombre’s blessing to access the STF).

Petrobras: He looked one way and kicked the other

Speaking of gigs, Petrobras’ business plan for 2026-2030, presented this week, results in a 20% reduction in planned investments in the energy transition. Strictly speaking: investment, which was 14.6% of the total in the last plan, fell to 11.9%. The cut occurs at the same time as the company positions itself as a “Leader of a Just Energy Transition” in an advertising campaign.

Endgame: The Final Column