Climate Threat • Climate Summit COP30

Analysis: The Crisis Cannot Be Solved at Climate Summits

Climate summits are not working. This is what political science professor Jessica F Green writes in Foreign Affairs ahead of COP30 in Brazil, in a text in which she condemns climate diplomacy as a concept for reducing carbon dioxide levels.

All historical agreements have given countries and companies the opportunity to find shortcuts and loopholes, such as buying emissions rights from other countries – and for the most part, everything has in fact continued as usual, she writes. Green argues that the climate crisis cannot be solved at climate summits, but at economic meetings such as the OECD. Studies show that raising taxes could have a real effect because it affects the root of the problem: money.

The Independent's Nick Ferris disagrees completely. Quite the opposite. He criticizes arguments like the Greens:

"COP meetings still manage to deliver not only positive words but also strikingly meaningful actions, despite what the detractors would have you believe," he writes in his analysis.

Ekot's climate commentator Mona Hambraeus describes COP30 as a fateful meeting where the most important question is whether it is still possible to keep the Paris Agreement alive.

Task: Several countries want to tax luxury flights more

A dozen countries are proposing a new tax on business and first class air travel, sources tell AFP. France, Spain and Kenya are among the group trying to gather support for the initiative, which will be presented at next week's climate summit in Brazil.

- We especially want to get more European countries involved, says a source.

The proposal also includes private flights. First-class seats generate three times as much climate emissions per passenger as regular tickets, partly due to the extra space, and a private trip 14 times more.