COP30 in Belém, Brazil, inexcusably ended without any mention of stopping fossil fuel emissions, the cause of global warming.
COP30 leaders swapped stories of living on a planet in crisis.
Somalia stated that its forests are vanishing and sea-level rise is occurring off its coast. Iraq said it routinely faces temperatures of 122 degrees, along with fresh water scarcity. Rwanda focused on floods that killed 120 people in 2023, and the Marshal Islands emphasized sea-level rise and warming oceans that are killing its coral reefs.
Indeed, in listening to these stories, the only conclusion one could reach is, as a representative from Somalia said, “We are now living on a planet in crisis.”
Yet, COP30 did not address how to stop climate change, which would require stopping oil, gas and coal emissions into our atmosphere.
COP30 is short for Conference of the Parties, aka International Climate Change Conferences, where leaders from around the planet come together to “stop” climate change.
However, it would be a mistake to conclude that these international conferences can stop climate change; they cannot.
The COP world conferences are not set up to stop climate change because they operate on a consensus basis, which in a global context cannot overcome geopolitical rifts, competing national economic interests (particularly around fossil fuels), insufficient climate finance for developing nations, and the voluntary, nonbinding nature of key agreements.
If these COP world conferences wanted to stop global warming, they would follow the lead of Santa Barbara County.
California has always been an environmental leader. In May, Santa Barbara County provided an example of what stopping climate change looks like. The county Board of Supervisors, supported by local environmental groups, voted to prohibit new oil and gas drilling and phase out existing oil and gas operations within the county.
The significance of this cannot be overstated. Santa Barbara County is oil country, yet the county’s action, in addition to prohibiting new oil and gas development, sunsets 1,030 active onshore wells producing 2.7 million barrels of oil annually.
The reason this is so instructive has to do with the county’s 2030 Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% of 2018 levels by 2030.
The plan includes strategies for reducing emissions in various sectors, including reducing emissions from electricity and natural gas use, promoting electric vehicles, reducing emissions from buildings by increasing energy efficiency, converting to all-electric systems, and improving the county’s resilience to the impacts of climate change, such as sea-level rise and extreme weather events.
Santa Barbara County has created a response to global warming that needs to be followed by governments around the world.
These are all good things. However, without phasing out all existing oil and gas development and prohibiting any new fossil fuel development, the county’s plan would have become an oxymoron incapable of reaching its 50% goal by 2030.
Clearly, it’s time to acknowledge that these COP conferences will not stop climate change. Indeed, what they’ve done by focusing on mitigations is admit their inability to deal effectively with global warming.
What they have also done is cede the stopping of climate change to local entities, like Santa Barbara County.
In this regard, kudos to Santa Barbara County. However, the county must come to grips with the fact it, de facto, has assumed a leadership role in the fight against climate change, and recruit other local governments, nationally and around the world, to follow its lead.
I understand that the county is a local government, not familiar with becoming a global leader. However, climate change has changed that.
Global warming is a global problem requiring a global response. The COP conferences tried, but could not rise to the occasion.
Santa Barbara County has created a response to global warming that needs to be followed by governments around the world.
In July, the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands issued a landmark advisory opinion stating that climate change is an “urgent and existential threat” and that states have legal obligations to act.
The World Court found that states have clear legal duties under international law to protect the climate system from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
Fossil fuel energy consumption reached a record high in 2024, leading to a rise in energy-related CO2 emissions to an all-time high. 2025 is shaping up to be among the warmest years on record, with many temperature records already broken.
The truth is that we cannot hide from or stop climate change by saying that all we can do is execute local solutions because “we” are a local organization. That is a 20th-century response.
In this century, there are no longer local solutions to problems like climate change, which is atmospheric, with no borders or boundaries. In other words, in dealing with climate change, there are no longer just local responses.
Whatever Santa Barbara County does will necessarily have a global impact. Greenhouse gas emissions cannot be localized. Once released into the atmosphere, they travel beyond the borders of the entity that released them.
Moreover, in the digital age, there is no excuse for Santa Barbara County not to evolve to a global leadership role by using the internet and social media platforms. We are environmentally in a new age, one requiring new approaches.
While it may be uncomfortable, the county, by creating an actual solution to stopping climate change, needs to recruit other local entities, nationally and globally, through the use of the internet to follow its lead and both prohibit new fossil fuel developments while simultaneously shutting down existing ones.
To have a chance of limiting warming so it does not exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world must simultaneously accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels, remove carbon from the atmosphere, and invest in renewable fuels-solar, wind and geothermal.