At COP30, nations confront stalled action to address climate change
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Delegates from almost 200 countries are gathering in Brazil this week to discuss plans to fight climate change.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The U.S. is not one of them. The Trump administration says it's not sending high-level officials, which means countries are trying to make progress without the U.S.
INSKEEP: Lauren Sommer of NPR's climate desk is here to explain what this means. Hi there, Lauren.
LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: Hi.
INSKEEP: I guess we should just acknowledge at the beginning this at least means the U.S. has a zero-carbon footprint when it comes to these talks - they're not traveling.
SOMMER: Maybe technically you're right this time, yeah.
INSKEEP: OK. Some of the other people do, but they're trying to fight climate change. How are they doing?
SOMMER: Well, not great, actually. No major country is meeting its goal of cutting emissions from fossil fuels. And, you know, last year, those emissions were higher than ever globally. Countries actually agreed to cut emissions 10 years ago now. That's when the Paris Agreement was signed.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
SOMMER: And the whole focus of that agreement and of these negotiations going on right now is to limit warming to this critical threshold, which is no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.
INSKEEP: How far behind are we then?
SOMMER: There's a really long way to go because right now the world is on track for 5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, and that amount of climate change comes with some big impacts. You know, heat waves get much more intense, storms get more intense - and that's hurricanes - but it's also just storms that produce more extreme rain. And then, you know, ecosystems like coral reefs have very little chance of surviving that kind of temperature change. So to avoid that and get on track, the United Nations found that emissions need to be cut in half by countries in the next 10 years.
INSKEEP: Obviously, the Trump administration doesn't think this way. I am recalling that in President Trump's first term, people were saying it might not end up mattering that much because the energy economy was moving in a certain way, moving toward clean fuels, and it would be hard for the United States really to change that. Do people still think the administration won't have that much of an impact?
SOMMER: You know, energy experts say it likely will have some impact because Trump has cut investment in renewable energy projects and is getting rid of the tax credit for solar projects. So that could mean that less clean energy is being built. And, you know, on Trump's first day in office, he pulled the U.S. out of the international climate agreement, the Paris Agreement. That process actually takes one year, so the U.S. will be officially out in January. But, you know, as countries try to figure out a path forward right now, it's without the U.S.
INSKEEP: Are other countries less likely to commit resources to this task if the United States is not doing so?
SOMMER: Yeah. I think there's a lot of concern because the science shows emissions need to fall really fast, and there's just not time to waste. There will be some U.S. presence at this summit, though. There's a delegation of state and local leaders going, and they're going to talk about how they're still investing in clean energy and they're cutting emissions. And New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is one of them.
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MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM: I don't care what the federal policy is. Our commitments are going to continue to keep America accountable and invested in where we are globally.
SOMMER: But, you know, you mentioned the economics, and that's really important here. Renewable energy is cheaper now, on average, than new natural gas and coal power plants. Last year, more than 90% of new power projects installed worldwide were renewable, not, you know, fossil fuel. So there is this sense that globally, electricity is going to get cleaner, no matter what the Trump administration does.
INSKEEP: Lauren Sommer from NPR's climate desk. Thanks for coming by.
SOMMER: Yeah, thank you.
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