COP30 Outcomes: Global Climate Action, Renewable Energy Progress, and What Comes Next

Dozens of country flags stand outside a building

I’ve followed COP negotiations since the very first Council of the Parties in Berlin, and one thing has remained true throughout: words are cheap, and actions speak louder. Across three decades, the COP process has often felt painfully disappointing - particularly in years when oil-producing states or fossil-fuel companies dominated the agenda. Yet when we look back now, especially in light of the COP30 outcomes, it’s undeniable that these annual gatherings have reshaped the way the world responds to climate change.

Looking back now, it’s clear that the global shift away from fossil fuels and toward renewables is real: slow, uneven, often frustrating, but massive in scale. Over the past 18 months, China has demonstrated a sustained reduction in fossil-fuel use. Even in the United States under Donald Trump, renewables continued their rise for one simple reason: they’re cheaper. Economics, at long last, is beginning to assert itself. Still, renewables alone won’t solve the deeper issues within the biosphere or the broader environmental crisis.

As COP30 concluded, two structural challenges stood out more sharply than ever. First, capitalism itself is breaking down - not in an ideological sense, but in a practical one. Like any machine, when it fails, you call a mechanic. Our current system fails to account for the simple fact that all wealth originates from the earth, which belongs to all of us, and from the labour of billions who add value to that natural wealth. When that value accumulates almost entirely at the top, instability becomes inevitable. If we want to avoid a future where the wealthy barricade themselves from the hungry, this imbalance must be addressed.

Second, our collective appetite for “more” remains insatiable. Consumerism drives waste, drains resources, and pollutes our air and water - often for nothing more than a moment’s satisfaction. Yes, our economic model depends on selling goods and services. But it doesn’t have to. If anything, the post-COP30 moment is exactly when the world should be taking a far more serious look at this economic reality.

In the end, COP remains our best imperfect tool. The pace of progress is agonisingly slow - far too slow to halt the slide we’re already on - but the process is all we have at a global scale. After thirty conferences, the path forward is still fraught, but not hopeless. For all its flaws, we should keep pushing, keep pressuring, and, when warranted, keep cheering them on.