COP30: Trump’s Shadow Looms Over Belem

COP30 takes place as multilateralism is under strain, governments are wavering on decarbonization targets and US President Donald Trump is on the offensive against climate action. As part of this special Energy Intelligence report, we see what was meant to be a COP focused on Nationally Determined Contributions ratchets has become about nature and loosely-defined “implementation.” In the circumstances, some would consider an uneventful conference to be a success: the energy transition, increasingly driven by technology rather than policy, would have survived another potential derailment by geopolitics.