2025 JULY ISSUE
PROGRESS REPORT
ON THE
PARIS
CLIMATE AGREEMENT
PART 27
By ANDREW SIA
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From the Desk of the Publisher
I have spent a lot of effort in the preparation of the report of COP30 which was held in Belém, Brazil. Brazil is known for the Amazon rainforest although it covers with other countries: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Brazil has the largest portion, with about 60% of the total area.
There are still many indigenous tribes living in the Amazon rainforest, and 60 of those tribes remain in voluntary isolation. The Amazon rainforest is home to 30% of the planet’s biodiversity as new plants and animal species are being discovered. The deforestation continues year after year and it is a very sad situation.
Building of the railway, highway, farms, mining and many illegal activities are happening there.
Climate Week NYC
Climate Week NYC is a charitable event that takes place in New York City every year. Its purpose is to promote climate action by appealing to business leaders, political change makers, local decision makers, and civil society representatives. Climate Week NYC is organized by Climate Group—largest of the organization’s annual flagship international events, and also the largest annual climate event of its kind in according to the organizers.
The first Climate Week NYC took part in 2009, and the summit is held alongside the United Nations General Assembly allowing the heads of state and other senior governmental figures to attend and to participate.
This year Climate Week NYC took part from September 21 to September 28.
Sustainable & Renewable Energy
We do a recap of the renewable energy as the record, and this can be used for our reference going forward.
Solar Energy – It is through the solar panels (photovoltaic) capturing sunlight that is clean, abundant, and scalable. It can be found in domestic areas like the residential rooftops and solar farms. It is widely used in the U.S., China, Europe, and India. It is the fastest growing renewable source.
Wind Energy – It is converting wind into electricity through turbines. It is both effective both onshore and offshore. It is a matured technology and very effective in windy regions and offshore wind has huge potential. It is big in Europe in Denmark, UK, and Germany. It is also big in China and the U.S.
Hydropower – It is generating energy from moving water from rivers and dams, and it is the oldest renewable source. Large dams can have environmental impacts, but smaller scale hydro is more sustainable. It is reliable, controllable, and can store energy with pumped hydro. It has the drought risk. It can be found in China, Brazil, Canada, U.S., and Norway.
Biomass & Bioenergy – It is using organic materials like wood, agricultural waste, and biofuel for heat or electricity. It can still emit carbon dioxide if it is poorly managed. It needs land and competes with food crops and requires transport logistic. It is used in the U.S., EU, and Brazil.
Geothermal Energy – It is drawing heat from beneath the earth’s surface to generate power or heating. It is reliable in regions with strong geothermal activity. It is reliable and load energy 24-hours with very low emission but only limited to geologically active regions. It requires high upfront drilling cost. It is in Iceland, the Philippines, the U.S., in California and Navada, and Kenya.
Marine & Tidal Energy – It is from the rise and fall of the tidal waves and captures energy from ocean surface movement. It is at its emerging stage. It is predictable as the tides follow lunar cycles, and high potential near coasts. It is still experimental and costly and can affect marine ecosystems. It can be found in UK, France, Canada, South Korea, and it is regarded the leading pilot projects.
Hydrogen (Green Hydrogen) – It is using renewable electricity to split water molecules and can be stored and transported. It is still expensive today, needs infrastructure for storage and transportation. It can be found in UK, Japan, South Korea, and Germany.
Nuclear Energy – It is not renewable but consider as low-carbon and often grouped with clean energy because it doesn’t emit greenhouse gases. But it is debatable.
Carbon Dioxide Atmospheric Content
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest point in 800,000 years. According to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization’s research, it was found that in 2024 it was likely to have been the hottest year on record and the first year to be 1.5° C above the preindustrial benchmark. It was the combination of the record of greenhouse gas levels combined with the El Niño weather phenomenon and other factors that caused the record heat.
UN secretary-general António Guterres urged the world leaders to step up climate action, but the U.S. President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time on January 20, 2025. This is the second time the U.S. has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on record.
Climate change triggered heatwaves, floods, droughts, storms, and rising sea levels. The recent constant records between 1.34° C to 1.41° C above pre-industrial levels is not only a wake-up call, but a devastating call for our risks to our lives, economies and our planet.
We have to watch out for the impact on the seas which are warming twice as fast as they were before 2005. The oceans reached a record heat level for the eighth consecutive years in 2024, and the rate of the sea-level rise has doubled in the past three decades. The World Meteorological Organization mentioned that it would take hundreds to thousands of years to reverse the rise of ocean warming.
The U.S. withdraw will take one year after the submission of quitting the Paris Agreement. Arguments Trump has been using are the U.S, financial burden with excessive regulations and reduce its competitiveness. Then it is the contributions to climate change which has been unfair to the U.S. Finally, his is questioning for the scientific certainty around climate change, and the need to reduce the carbon emissions.
Earlier on, the U.S. senates’ vote, 95-0, showed that there was a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol was an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns. It was citing the potential harms of emission reduction to the U.S, economy.
As early as in the 1990s, the greenhouse gas emissions had caught the world’s attention. The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and was adopted in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. Emission targets were set with the first commitment period running from 2008 to 2012. The Kyoto Protocol has been largely superseded by the Paris Agreement which was adopted in 2015.
What is the Future of Solar and Wind Energy in the U.S.?
America’s demand for electricity is soaring because of the boom in data centers. Because of the urgent need, it is no longer practical to build new gas plants to supply the extra power that the nation needs. The renewable energy—wind, solar and battery storage are relatively cheaper and faster to build. It has also an advantage as it can keep the power’s cost under control.
Trump has been known for his skepticism about renewable energy, instead he has been promoting fossil fuels, such as oil and gas. He halted federal government’s approvals for wind farm, stopped solar arrays on public lands, and frozen billions of dollars spending on battery factories and upgrade electric grids.
At the same time, Republic leaders in Congress are talking about ending subsidies in the form of tax credits and this has paralyzed the renewable energy industry.
This is not going to help in slashing its global warming emissions and it is against the Paris Climate initiatives.
It is already said that over the next 15 years, the U.S. electricity demand could increase by up to 15% as tech companies are building massive data center for artificial intelligence. The demand for electric vehicles will increase and eventually replace vehicles using combustion engines. This year, the use of solar, wind and battery will make up 93% of new electric capacity added to the grids. The rest will come from power plants burning natural gas. It is known that building new wind turbines or installing new solar panels is the cheapest way to generate additional electricity. Also, new wind and solar projects can be built within 12 to 18 months. Cost of building new gas power plants has been nearly tripled since 2022, while wind and solar the increase is modest.
AI Boom is Challenging the Accessibility of Renewable Energy
It has been found that those decommissioned coal plants are being converted into giant gas-powered facilities to supply new U.S. data centers that need 24-hour undisrupted power supply. Homer City Redevelopment in Western Pennsylvania is redeveloping the plant which is expected to be the largest in the U.S, producing 4.5 gigawatts of electricity—enough to power several San Francisco-size cities. We have to know that city like San Francisco has 800,000+ population is by no means a small city. This electricity is going to supply the need of the new data centers that are coming up around the U.S. This is just one of the 85 gas-powered facilities in developing around the world.
From the deserts of the United Arab Emirates to the outskirts of Ireland’s capital, the energy demands for AI applications are running through these centers that are driving the surge of investment into fossil fuels. This is undermining the global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, knowing that we have to limit the rising temperatures, global emissions must be halved by 2030.
Tech groups are showing records for being investors in clean energy in an effort to deal with their emissions, and much of this is backed by green power credits. This is far from guaranteed effort to offset their actual energy consumption. Already the existing electricity grids are depending on coal, oil and gas, data centers’ need are adding pressure.
In the United Arab Emirates, it positioned itself as an AI hub, and its 5-gigawatt data center project is involving in OpenAI’s Stargate which is expected to use 1 billion cubic feet of gas a day.
Energy demands of AI learning phase are high and volatile, while the data centers are high and constant. Both are poorly matched with wind and solar energy. AI has a spiky need of power when it is doing deep learning and clean energy is purely theoretical idea. Data centers need conventional gas turbines.
Tech companies have been some of the world’s largest investors in clean energy, but how to solve the challenge to enable stable supply during cloudy or windless time during the day is still a problem. Since it is so unpredictable, renewable energy is not a good choice.
International Energy Agency is predicting the data energy consumption to double in the next five years. Mismatch of those Big Tech companies for their credit claims for clean energy with their actual demand from the power grids depending on oil, coal and gas is not happening in short term.
Across Southeast Asia, from Riau Islands of northern Indonesia to the southern Malaysian state of Johor and neighboring Singapore, new data centers are coming up alongside the vast solar farms. But most of the data centers are still depending on fossil fuels, and take Singapore for instance, the country was still 92% depending on natural gas when it was in 2023.
Data centers will account to 30% of power demand in Malaysia, 14% in the Philippines, and 12% in Singapore by the end of the decade.
On the other hand, Trump’s attack on renewable energy is not helping the situation. Clean energy projects in the U.S. worth $18.6 billion have been cancelled this year when he entered the office. Demand for energy to power the AI boom can only come from renewable sector as it is the cheapest and fastest source of energy to deploy. Renewable energy can be built and connected in a matter of one to two years, now it has made the situation difficult to proceed. Already eleven groups of renewable energy companies have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of the year due to the cutting of governmental subsidies. Residential solar has also been cut by tax credit and its incentive will end completely later this year. A lot of banks are concerned because they have a lot of money at risk on these projects.
Recap of the COP, Kyoto and Paris Climate Agreement
COP1 started in Berlin, Germany, on March 28, 1995, and closed on April 7, 1995, and it was the first conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and began formal international negotiations on climate change.
It was followed by COP2 which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 8 to19, 1996.
COP3 was held in Kyoto, Japan on December 1 to 10, 1997. In this meeting, the Kyoto Protocol set up the Paris Climate Agreement and put in force from 2005 to 2012. It also set up legal binding emissions targets for developed countries only at that time.
Then the Paris Agreement in 2015 made a shift to a new approach, whereas, each country sets its own target, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), this new model was designed to achieve universal participation by all nations, rich and poor, in the joint effort to reduce emissions. The goal of the Paris Agreement (2015) limits the global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, with an aim of 1.5 degree Celsius.
The World’s Attitude About the Climate Pact in the Last COPs
Last November 2024, UN Climate Change Conference—COP29, the president of the host country, Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev, shamelessly praised openly oil and gas as “gifts from God.” Knowingly that the COP is condemning the carbon emissions have been threatening the global warming. The conference has also been known for its high-profile, star-studded affairs.
Its host, Azerbaijan’s authoritarian ruler, Ilham Aliyev, started to jail activists and journalists to mute any voices from the oppositions. That resulted only a few world leaders to be found. Absented from the conference were the U.S. President, Joe Biden, and vice-President, Kamala Harris, China’s President Xi Jinping, President of European Commission, Ursula von Leyen, French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Brazil President, Luiz Inácio Luls da Silva.
The summit was turned dimmer in an UN official report declared no climate progress had been made over the previous year.
This was no surprise when the COP27 in 2022 was held in Sharm El Shaik, Egypt, and it was attended by more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists who were connected to major oil and gas companies.
The COP28 was in 2023, and it was headed by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Sultan Al Jaber. This didn’t send a good signal for the summit and the organizers should not allow the oil companies and the big polluters to put down any rules and to bankroll the climate action. They didn’t have plans to green energy transitional plans and they continue to reap enormous profits from the selling of crude oil.
If we look back for the last COP27, COP28, and COP29, letting those Middle East countries—Egypt, Abu Dabhi, and Azerbaijan to host was a fatal mistake. We can come to know now the result and their purpose was to continue to promote fossil fuel and try to safeguard their own interest.
What to Expect to the Forthcoming COP30
This year’s conference will take place in Belém, Brazil from November 10-21. COP30 also marks 10 years since Paris, and all 195 parties are supposed to come up with updated decarbonization plans—Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), but the formal deadline passed in this February, and only 15 countries had submitted their plans.
A conspicuous theory has been the U.S. President, Donald Trump, was first announced his intention to withdraw from the pact way back in 2017. This time, after his reentrance of the White House, he cancelled his predecessor’s climate bill—the Inflation Reduction Act—and vowing to cancel all approvals of new renewable projects.
The U.S. has become a significant exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG), and in fact it rose from less than 0.1 billion cubic feet per day to nearly 12 billion cubic feet per day in 2023. It is roughly 26% of the U.S. energy exports.
As for oil, the export of crude oil, U.S. reached 4.2 million barrels per day in the 12 months leading to August 2024.
We will feature our report for the COP30 at the last part of this report.
Further Writeup About Climate Summit
Climate policies have been a tug of war. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act was hailed as an unprecedented investment in the country’s green-energy future. This legislative achievement from the Biden administration has been stripped. There is not even any political coalition to defend it. Trump administration slashed the Inflation Reduction Act and undertook a genuine war on renewables, the country continues to appear as a petrostate. Other countries viewed the U.S. commitment to climate goals with skepticism.
But on the opposite, China has taken a different approach and has been recognized as the world’s first electrostate. It has taken a fast step and became a green-energy superpower, and it is the area they have downplayed the U.S.
It is a fact that 74% of all global solar and wind projects are being constructed in China, or by Chinese companies. For 2015, China has installed twice as much solar as the rest of the world put together, and its green supply chain is linking the world together. It is known as the global green tech hegemon, and its ability to confer cheap clean energy has already become a valuable source of soft power. Unlike what it was like before, the clean energy was far to reach by the developing countries.
It was all because that between 2019 to 2024, China investment in green manufacturing had grown more than 25-fold.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it threw the world’s energy market into crisis. The European countries were scrambling to find fossil fuels and gas to meet their energy needs. Countries like Pakistan and the developing countries were suffering from blackouts that led to political discontent. Millions of Pakistanis started to buy rooftop solar panels from China which were so inexpensive than in those global markets. As the result, those far fetching green energy can now be affordable to the developing countries and Pakistan is the world’s sixth-largest solar market in the world and its solar energy is equal to the country’s pre-existing electric grid. More countries are joining Pakistan and in many countries across sub-Sahara Africa have adopted the Chinese solar panels, and for the first time in two centuries, the West is no longer the leader in the future technology but become the follower.
The landscape of the green transition is being rewritten as the cheap green tech can be available to developing nations and they can be pulled out from exploitative relationships with petrostates and protect themselves from inflation and avoid falling into debt traps. There is no longer the so called “energy poverty” and the continuation of using fossil fuel. The knife used to hang over their head is lifted.
This time for the world to keep the global warming close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius is probably more achievable as the solar and wind will pay a more significant role. Unfortunately, the international collaboration on climate change is fraying. The United States is setting a very bad example, and Trump is penalizing the renewable energy business and promoting fossil fuels.
It is now ten years after Paris Conference, a vast majority of countries are not in pace to meet the climate targets. China is dominance the production and adoption of clean energy has created concerns in the other governments about economic dependency and national security. The global map of alliances on climate changes is being redrawn.
The debates around climate change have often focus on the world’s largest economics and carbon emitters, namely, the United States, China, India, and Brazil and the European Union.
Green Hydrogen is Facing the Backdown in Germany
German steel group Thyssenkrupp, one of the world’s largest steel producers, has the intention to become the flagship of its green facilities in the industrial town of Duisburg.
Germany, as the main industrial country in Europe and with its powerhouse is EU’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, had laid out a series of bold targets for reducing its emissions. But the country is facing a sluggish economic growth and trade competitions from China has to slowdown in its adoption. Coal-fired blast furnaces generate around 7% of its total emissions. Earlier on it was at the forefront of a drive by the bloc for green hydrogen as it seeks to meet its goal of cutting emissions by almost 90% by 2040.
So that we know the green hydrogen costs around €6 per kilo, about twice the cost of “grey” hydrogen produced from natural gas. They even expect the cost to rise to €10 per kilo in 2030 due to rising regulatory costs and investment costs. This is four times the price of natural gas today.
Also, ArcelorMittal, world’s second largest steel producer by volume, with operations in 15 countries, is pulling back a public subsidy of €1.36 billion planning for the change as right now the green hydrogen is making the fuel too expensive.
The last German government, a three-way coalition that included the Green Party, put green hydrogen at the center of its plans to decarbonize its large and hard to be electrified heavy industry. Beginning of this year, it started building a €20 billion hydrogen core network consisting of mainly converted gas pipelines stretching 9,000 km and expected to be completed by 2032. It has also struck international partnerships paving the way for large-scale imports as well as setting the target for having a 10 GW of electrolyze capacity to produce hydrogen in Germany by 2032.
The industry gloom compounded with mixed signals from Germany’s new government has promised to accelerate the hydrogen rollout but slashed subsidies. The government has made the revival of economic growth a top priority over its commitment on climate change policy.
Clean Energy Supply is Boosting China’s Geopolitical Role
Whether we like it or not is already out of the question. The fact is that with China’s state subsidies, a structural change in battery prices, solar panels, wind turbines, and rapidly displacing many of the conventional technologies. Not only that, but also China’s green solutions have reached many of those smaller countries in the Caribbeans and Africa which are venerable to intense storms, floods and droughts.
The danger of macroeconomic outcomes from its extensive subsidies on one hand, and its industrial overcapacity on the other, would wipe out other countries’ industry. However, large swaths of the developing countries appear more on the immediate upside on partnership with China. Take solar panel as an example, for this year it surged 60% in the year to June for its export to Africa.
China is deploying its experts in different parts of the world to learn how to deploy renewable energy working in extreme heat and cold, and in high and low wide speeds. For instance, in Bangladesh it has months of both chronic low-wind speed conditions and typhoons.
For trucking, inside a new $3 billion industrial park on the outskirt of Changsha, capital of Central China’s Hunan Province, a highly automated factory of Sany group, which is China’s biggest producer of construction equipment is churning out tens of thousands of battery-powered trucks as well as solar-powered battery charging and charging stations.
China is expecting that electric trucks would replace trucks with internal combustion engines. Just like what the electric vehicles did to the automobiles with combustion engines. It is expected to outsell diesel trucks in three years in China and the companies are already looking for investing in its sales networks and also manufacture outside China.
We can look at the U.S. under Trump’s administration who is calling climate change a hoax. China is offering new technology and products to countries to develop green energy and to reduce their carbon emissions. We can see a very big contrast here.
The Dilemma of Forecast in Fossil Fuel
The Stockholm Environment Institute is predicting the world output of all fossil fuels will rise between now and 2030 with production going through to 2050. This is a study from 20 major producers of coal, oil and gas from their medium- to long-term projection. This is a huge contrast to the cut as needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
You can say that the higher estimate comes from the consumption of coal in China. In recent years we have seen the Chinese government giving the development of coal-fired power plants and mines to supply them, but we have to see that it will go to a higher level then it will start to decline.
Meanwhile, for the U.S. projection of its fossil gas production for the next five years will rise strongly. The surging of the electric needs stemming from its dada centers to power artificial intelligence have boosted demand for gas-power.
U.S. has a surge in export in liquified natural gas to Europe because of the war in Ukraine with Russia. This has caused the energy market turbulence by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has promoted other countries to increase their fossil fuel production. This has made the global warming as set out in the Paris Agreement to be kept below 2 degrees Celsius look optimistic. The goal it set is becoming more dramatic and less feasible.
At the same time Trump is promoting fossil fuels and it continues to threaten to get rid of the renewables and labeled it as a hoax.
Having said that, countries like Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, and China are expanding long-term national plans to take advantage of low-cost green technology. China may have raised its coal output forecast, but its renewable energy investment has exceeded expectations far more dramatically. It has hit its 2030 target for solar and wind capacity last year, six years early. Its rolling out of electric vehicles and clean energy have taken away the importance of its fossil fuel consumption.
Written Before the COP 30 in Belém, Brazil
Brazil’s environmental minister, Marina Silva, who rejoined the Lula’s government after she resigned in 2008 when she complained the difficulty of implementing a green policy at that time. She commented that this time it is because of President Lula’s personal commitment to end deforestation by 2030 and to set more ambitious targets for Brazil. At this moment, its congress is trying to allow fast-tracking of approval for projects consider as national strategy and medium-sized projects with a minimum environmental impact could be self-certified. This is backed by the powerful farming lobbyists who have been very vocal at the congress meeting before it went for the summer recess.
What is at stake is not only Brazilian environment, but also its environmental obligations under a landmark trade treaty waiting for ramification between the Mercosur bloc of Latin American countries and the EU.
Although the president was able to veto part of the bills before its August 8 deadline, but his votes were not a complete override: 26 provisions were voted outright, while 37 were modified. Congress can still vote to overturn the president’s votes. This will put Brazil’s international reputation at stake especially the UN COP30 climate summit in November will be held in the Amazon city of Belém.
Greenpeace has shown its concern over Brazil’s illegal expansion in their agricultural business. We have seen deforestation due to the illegal logging, and the world’s remaining largest rainforest suffer from wildfires because of the higher temperature which has led to the loss of humidity.
The Amazon rainforest covers nine countries: Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Brazil has the largest portion, with about 60% of the total area.
There are between 350 and 500 indigenous tribes living in the Amazon rainforest. About 60 of those tribes remain in voluntary isolation. But they are alarming about the loss of the environmental reserves that are in the process of being marked out for farmlands.
Brazil has also been increasing the fossil fuel extraction, and this is in contradict with the country seeking to play a global climate leadership role. Oil drillings in the river mouth of the Amazon River basin would need closer environmental assessment.
Then there is the superhighway, the BR-319 running from Manaus through the rainforest towards the border with Bolivia. Again, this would need to have the governmental presence and rigorous governance.
Report of COP30
COP30 is taking place from November 6 to 21 in Belém, Brazil, a city on the edge of the Amazon Forest. It is the 30th UN climate conference and it has brought together world leaders, scientists, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society to discuss priority actions to tackle climate change.
This time nearly 200 countries, world leaders, and fossil fuel lobbyists have attended the COP30. The largest national delegations were from the host country, Brazil (3,805), followed by China (789) and Nigeria (749). While the official U.S. delegation was absent, but other U.S. figures attended, included California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Al Gore, and numerous governors and mayors from various states.
Other international leaders such as UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Representatives from non-governmental organizations and other civil society groups attended. Students and alumni from universities, such as the Middlebury Institute of International Studies were attending.
Over 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists attended. Businesses and trade associations sent their representatives from companies and trade groups, including fossil fuel companies like TotalEnergies and Equinor, attended the strikes.
This UN climate conference is known for the large protests which included large contingents of local indigenous groups calling for an immediate stop to develop projects in the Amazon, such as a proposed railway for transporting the grains, and commercial river developments. These projects are requiring the indigenous communities to grant legal ownership of their ancestral lands which climate activists regard as essential for protecting biodiversity and forests.
The central theme of the protests is the demand for an end to fossil fuels, but on the other hand there we can find a record number of fossil fuel lobbyists attending the conference and the Brazilian government’s recent decision to allow offshore oil exploration near the Amazon River’s mouth.
This has been touted as the “Indigenous people’s COP.” And the indigenous people are showing their concerns and the need to prevent the Amazon from reaching an irreversible tipping point as in the decade between 2010 and 2019, the Amazon lost more than 15 million acres (Approximately 24,000 square miles) of rainforest. Annual deforestation has reached the peak in 2022, and approximately 4.89 million acres were cleared, a 21% increase from the prior year and the highest figure since 2004.
In 2024, an estimated 4.3 million acres were deforested across Amazon.
Between 2001 and 2020, the Amazon lost over 54.2 million hectares (approximately 134 million acres) of forest, which is an area nearly the size of France. It has all been taken over by cattle ranching, agriculture, especially soy production, mining, and road construction.
The Amazon rainforest is home to 30% of the planet’s biodiversity as new plants and animal species are being discovered all the time. It is shared by Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, Gyana, and French Guiana. There are too many activities like gold mining, coca farming, and drug and weapons trafficking have aggravating the situation, and put all those protecting the forest at risk.
On November 18, Brazil, host of the COP30 released a first draft of the summit’s final agreement with the title as, “Global Mutirão: uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change.” The draft has taken a significant step and includes multiple options for conclusion, although a full consensus among the nearly 200 nations has not yet been reached. We can refer to the key details of the draft as the following:
Fossil Fuels – It reflects deep divisions as there are options on low-carbon solution, phasing out fossil fuels, or not taking any actions.
Climate Finance – It is a major demand for financial assistance to the poorer countries from the developing countries by 2030 or 2035.
Trade Measures – It has to do with a unilateral EU’s carbon border pricing.
National Pledges – It has to do with the annual assessing of the national climate pledges, which is more frequent, instead of every five years to track progress.
We have to keep the fingers cross for the agreement to be finalized ahead of the conference’s scheduled closing on November 21, 2025.
New Financial Goal Reached at the COP30
Brazil’s COP30 presidency pushed through a compromised climate deal after extending the closing date of the conference that would help to finance for poor nations coping with global warming and that omitted any mention of the fossil fuels driving it. Also, the world’s biggest historical emitter, the United States, declined to send an official delegation. Nevertheless, the United Nations climate secretariat UNFCCC praised the delegates for coming together in a year of denial and division.
As agreed, upon at COP29, there are two main targets for 2035: developed countries will aim to mobilize at least $300 billion annually for developing countries, and work toward a broader goal of reaching at least $1.3 trillion annually in international climate finance. This has replaced the previous $100 billion target to address the increasing needs of developing countries for climate action.
COP30 was adjourned on November 22, 2025, in Belém, Brazil.
About COP31
The next host of COP31 will be Australia and it will be hosted in Adelaide. We make this report about the latest of Australia as a record. Australia has 2,968 square miles with a population of 27.4 million and its Prime Minister is Anthony Albanese. It is the world’s 14th-largest economy.
In the past summer, it was scorching hot, and the wildfires sweep across the country and turned the sky black. The firestorms were just one of the extreme weather events, not forget to mention the typhoons, floods and droughts.
Australia is known for its enormous geographic and the climate change can bring a lot of regional impacts. Part of the country can be covered in snow when an unusual cold spell can occur.
Australia is still relying on fossil fuels, including coal, which generate half of its electricity. It is calling to lower its emissions, and the solution is to use more renewable energy.
Australia is investing in solar panels, and the plant is in South Australia, but the investment doesn’t benefit the country although Australia has a significant role and holds patents for key achievements. The most notable pioneer work was made by Professor Martin Green whose work is used in about 90% of solar panels which is being recognized worldwide. And other patented technologies developed by organizations, like CSIRO and companies in solar panel recycling.
China moved fast and ramped up its investment in manufacturing as it has dominating critical minerals. China made them cheap and affordable.
Australia failed to capitalize their inventions which the most unfortunate.
Written After Publishing the Progress Report of the Paris Climate Agreement
In this report I have numbered it as part 27 and I have some thinking back to do. It was as early as 2018, I started the report and used the title as “Progress Report of the Paris Climate Agreement and Study of Alternative Energy and Renewable Energy.” Later, I shortened it to “Progress Report on the Paris Climate Report.”
I was frustrated when Trump entered the White House for his first day and he left the Paris Climate Accord. He also denied Biden’s several Acts regarding to clean air and environmental and causes further chaos.
First of all, we have to agree that majority of climate scientists agreed that human activities, especially the greenhouse emissions, is driving the recent global warming. It was as early as in 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the members of the UN and WMO, and thousands of volunteered scientists contribute their reports on the state of climate science. In 2015, under the Paris Agreement, the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) emerged. The Paris Agreement was signed by over190 countries to collectively address climate change by setting national emission reduction targets and strategies.
As the result, Paris Agreement becomes the main global framework for countries to pledge reductions in carbon emissions and the reports require total transparency and increases target over time. Many nations and cooperations commit to net-zero targets in 2050 and ramp up their renewable energy investments. The rich countries are helping the poorer countries to adapt and mitigate into their support for climate awareness.
We have been hearing skepticism, denials and “hoax” claims, especially from politicians, media, or interest-aligned circles. They tend to spread their skepticism especially when any regulations are proposed. But this only belong to a smaller group of people. Some normal citizens would think that climate change is only a natural cycle and humans have minimal control. They may even think that climate change has been exaggerated or even political motivated.
United States President Trump, in his two separate terms set very bad example. In his 2017 term, he announced the U.S. should withdraw from the Paris Agreement, claiming that the agreement had treated the U.S. very unfair. In his second term in January 2025, he signed Executive Order 14162, and directed the withdraw again from the Paris Agreement. The U.S. withdrawal doesn’t remove the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which provides the foundation for subsequent agreements aiming to prevent human interference with the climate system. Obviously certain obligations are still indicted.
But many U.S. states, cities, and private sectors continue climate action even without federal support. At this COP30, California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Al Gore, and numerous governors and mayors from various states attended the conference which was something quite encouraging.
Weather Forecast About this Winter for the North America
A colder winter is likely to happen especially in the Northern Plains and New England, while other regions like the South and Southwest may experience a warmer, but drier winter. The overall forecast is for a winter of dramatic swings, with cold, snowy periods expected by periods of warmth, leading to a “wild ride” overall, and this is according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
This is also known as La Niña conditions, which typically bring colder and wetter weather to the northern U.S. and warmer, drier weather to the south.
La Niña arises when sea-temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are cooler than average. This affects global air circulation and the jet stream and influence weather pattern far from the tropics. A typical La Niña winter in North America—the northern U.S. and Canada tend to be colder, wetter, and snowier than average. Meanwhile, the southern U.S. would experience warmer and drier winter than normal condition.