How to stop fossil fuel interests wrecking COP30
Climate politics has always been brutal - a fact many campaigners and governments appear to have forgotten. It’s time for those who want a cleaner, safer planet to organise and collaborate.
By Tom Brookes
The biggest surprise about the US sabotage of a deal to clean up International shipping is that anyone was surprised. This was a textbook effort by the US and fossil fuel allies that has been finessed over three decades.
From unsigning the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, blocking progress at the Bali COP in 2007, quitting the Paris Agreement in 2017 and helping oil countries trash UN plastic pollution talks in 2025, the US has a long track record of nixing environmental talks.
Whatever folks may say or write in the heated aftermath of the IMO collapse - this attitude towards global governance when it comes to climate change is not new, whoever is in the White House. In the past the US and fellow fossil fuel travellers have delivered pressure behind closed doors. This correspondent remembers small island states’ envoys in tears after a US meeting in 2012.
Heavy metal
What is different is that traditional US tactics of arm twisting and coercion are now displayed in the open - and in the case of the UK-based IMO - on the territory of a key ally. Now threats to countries are delivered in public. As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio details in a WSJ piece, at the IMO this involved an ‘all of cabinet’ approach.
On 10 October Rubio said the US could impose sanctions, port fees, and commercial penalties against countries backing IMO measures. On 17 October President Trump piled in via Truth Social. This message was also conveyed directly by diplomats and embassies to capitals.
As Lloyds List reports: ‘Its response was an overwhelming show of diplomatic force, including threats at a state, company and individual level…the US did all it could to bully, threaten or cajole countries into backing down. It will probably do so again next year.’
In that context, the fact a deal approved with a 63-16 majority six months ago got nixed with a 57-49 vote to adjourn talks for a year is not a shock. Faced with force and lacking vocal support from the EU, UK and other backers of the deal, many smaller countries folded.
The question now is will the US domination and destruction at UN environment talks continue unabated? Rubio seems to suggest so in his WSJ piece: ‘Our coalition-building efforts paid off… should this initiative or any other similar one emerge from the UN bureaucracy again, our coalition against it will be ready—and larger.’
Marco, maybe
This is debatable, for a few reasons.
For one, the IMO has always been an unpredictable venue for taking action on climate. The UN agency is dominated by shipping countries and companies with strong vested interests in keeping oil and gas markets flowing. The fact it was close to delivering a net zero pathway was historic - precisely because history shows us it has been a climate sceptic venue. What was curious last week was the response from business groups: uniformly disappointed that a source of transition finance had been hijacked.
Second, the core of a coalition ‘assembled’ by the US already existed. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Venezuela were already agitating against the measures. US pressure undoubtedly swelled numbers from 16 to 57 - but it was not alone in leading the charge, nor are all those who voted to delay always going to play ball with the US - especially given it has bombed two of them in the past year. China, Jamaica, St Kitts and Barbados are equally unlikely climate-trashing allies.
Third, the US took advantage of a remarkably weak opposition. IMO hosts the UK were - in public - virtually silent. A weak EU allowed major shippers Greece and Cyprus to split from the ranks. China read the room and bailed. 29 countries either abstained or avoided voting. The IMO is not a hill capitals want to die on. The only countries who appear to have engaged their heads of state and foreign ministers are the US and Saudi Arabia. Is it any surprise they prevailed?
Fourth, and related, pressure on capitals was limited. What civil society pressure on governments to hold strong was evidently not heard. That’s not a criticism of the groups working at the IMO - more an observation that the broader environment and climate community is spread thin. History tells us that for climate campaigns to resonate in a world dominated by fossil fuel hungry governments they need to focus on specific targets and coordinate combined firepower from multiple organisations. In 2025 of all years - with political fires raging globally - this is hard, but not impossible.
COP30: open
No doubt, the collapse of UN plastic talks and a plan to curb shipping emissions in 2025 has been grim news. It feeds a sense that UN governance on the environment is disintegrating and the US government’s zeal to deconstruct deals built over the past 20 years is accelerating.
That’s too simplistic a take. Change is not - and will never be - linear. In the 30 odd years that countries have focused on tackling the climate crisis the US has - bar a few years around the Kyoto Protocol being agreed in the late 1990s and the early 2010s ahead of the Paris Agreement - been a hostile operator in hock to domestic oil, gas & coal interests.
History tells us that when the EU holds strong, offers support and a shield to developing countries and engages with major emerging markets - progress can take place, even in a world where fossil fuel powers dominate. That alliance held off 8 years of a Bush White House that did its level best to trash climate science and action.
The key message from the IMO debacle should not be despair and wailing that the UN is broken, as we’ve heard from a few in the past few days. And it should not be anger that Trump mobilised his cabinet to crush a climate plan: this was to be expected. The surprise should be that opposing governments failed to do the same to defend it.
Even in the closing hours of the Paris Agreement, France President Francois Hollande and Pope Francis were mobilised to cajole governments into backing the deal. At COP30 in Brazil, President Lula should keep his phone and his rolodex close at hand: he will need Ramaphosa, Modi & Xi to land an outcome on forests, finance and fossils.
The truth is, winning on climate means running political campaigns that appeal to the self interest of leaders, engage the media and cut through in a new and fast evolving digital landscape. And yes, it requires government leaders to recognise the stakes and act as leaders. It’s been done many times before. Time to do it again.
Tom Brookes is the CEO of the Meliore Foundation
superb, dear Tom