The politics behind our environmental future

By Gael Giraud SJ, Senior Researcher at CNRS

My frame of mind is one of cautious optimism after having listened to two remarkable women here in Belém: Patricia Gualinga and Laurence Tubiana.

Patricia Gualinga’s voice makes unmistakably clear the profoundly legitimate demands of Amazonian Indigenous peoples: at a moment when trillions are being discussed for renewable-energy financing and climate-adaptation efforts, it would be only just for Indigenous communities — those on the frontline of climate devastation, with the fewest resources to defend themselves, and those who know the forest better than anyone else — to receive at least an (even ridiculously) tiny portion of this monetary flood.

It would also be only just for their rights — especially their right to live on their ancestral lands — finally to be recognised, not as a marginal issue but as a structural obligation within global climate governance. And for the first time at a COP, I believe, it is striking to hear the demands of Indigenous peoples converge with those of women worldwide, who are disproportionately affected by ecological disruption.

In other words, the fight against our unexamined colonialism and ecofeminism are, in truth, one and the same political struggle. That such a connection is finally voiced and acknowledged at a COP is already a significant step forward — even if we have to insist that words must now give way to action.

In Laurence Tubiana’s case, what struck me — and this is my own reading — was the lucidity and resolve of her message. The main challenge, as we know, lies in the attitude of third countries in the face of what has effectively been a renewed withdrawal by the United States from the Paris Agreement — the second one in a decade — and in the face of the very strong pressure Washington is now exerting to ensure that COP30 leads to no meaningful outcome.

Yet even Argentina has not left the Paris Agreement. Even the major oil-exporting countries that are currently blocking negotiations here at COP30 are simultaneously seeking to diversify their energy portfolios, investing — albeit timidly — in renewables.

In Africa too, there has been movement: even Nigeria, which ten years ago held firmly to the classic diplomatic line (“We did not benefit from the West’s industrial revolution; we too are entitled to development, and that requires exploiting our fossil resources”), now acknowledges the need to board the clean-energy train — a train in which Beijing has become the locomotive, far ahead of the rest of the global convoy.

All of this means that the mixed record of the ten years following the extraordinary success of COP21 is not as bleak as it may seem.

Between 2005 and 2015, global emissions rose by approximately 18%. Between 2015 and 2025, they may have increased by “only” 10%. And 2025 may well turn out to be humanity’s historical peak-emissions year. Even the International Energy Agency now anticipates a global emissions plateau sometime between 2024 and 2027. 

This occurs at a time when global demand for fossil fuels seems to have already reached a plateau and when a peak in oil extraction is no longer ruled out, even when accounting for non-conventional extraction techniques. 

This is not nothing. Especially in today’s tense geopolitical climate — shaped by the United States’ new stance but also by instability within many countries. Brazil, which is presiding over COP30, finds itself in exactly this tension. The next elections may partly hinge upon whether or not Brazil chooses to exploit its offshore oil reserves, and whether or not it chooses to protect the Amazon. President Lula’s speech tomorrow will have to be listened to with great attention.

In 2023, the Ecuadorian people voted in a historic referendum to halt oil exploitation in Yasuní — a moment of climate democracy that remains unprecedented. Across the world, civil societies are often ahead of political classes still captive to industrial and financial lobbies.

The same is true in Europe, where the far right and the traditional right have recently joined forces in the European Parliament to block new pro-climate regulations, despite the fact that 80% of Europeans support stronger climate rules.

Whether the Lula administration will be able to hear the voice of global civil society — while also responding to Brazil’s legitimate aspiration to prosperity — is one of the crucial questions.

Two additional challenges lie before us. First, resisting the temptation of geo-engineering pseudo-solutions. Proposals to spray sulphur into the stratosphere — in order to limit solar radiation — carry enormous technical and geopolitical risks.

Since at least 2022, Saudi Arabia is already investing in weather-modification programmes (cloud seeding) and funding geo-engineering research, even as the region experiences episodes of extreme rainfall and flooding. Allowing such technologies to develop without international governance or a thorough assessment of their risks would be profoundly irresponsible. And even in Riyad, caution has fortunately begun to prevail. 

Second, resisting the headlong rush into the abyss driven by so-called artificial “intelligence”.

Obviously, no country wants to lose this race despite the fact that AI might soon threaten even the reliability of the internet as such. In addition, the ecological cost of data centers — especially in terms of water consumption — is now so high that, without rapid global regulation, the water demand gap (40% around 2030?) might increase because of the technological rivalry between Californian Tech and Beijing. The American Tech sector’s belated alignment with an obviously anti-democratic public policy is only the first devastating expression of this deadly competition.

Finally, there is one piece of news that may paradoxically be positive: for the first time, the insurance cost of climate-related damages probably equals the profits insurers derive from fossil-fuel projects.

A study by Insure Our Future shows that in 2023, the world’s 28 largest insurers incurred roughly USD 10.6 billion in climate-related losses—an amount almost equal to the USD 11.3 billion in premiums they earned from fossil-fuel clients (coal, oil, and gas).

If insurers begin to acknowledge that, by continuing to underwrite fossil-fuel expansion, they are sawing off the very branch upon which they sit, we may be about to witness a genuine shift in the financial architecture behind the climate crisis. Given the key role of insurance companies in this architecture, this might be capable of reversing the ecological backlash we have been witnessing in the financial sphere for the past two years. 

And the good news is that political classes generally listen to their insurers.