Forests, Yes; Funding, Yes - But Any Meaningful Engagement On Fossil Fuels Highly Unlikely At Climate Summit

[hatrack]

EDIT

World leaders who jetted in over the Amazon rainforest, its green vastness scarred and pockmarked by widespread logging, ranches and small individual farm clearings, are in no doubt as to Brazil’s key demand from them: to sign up to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF). For the presidency, this will be the single most important achievement of Cop30: a fund that will be used to keep existing forests standing. Brazil wants to gather pledges of $25bn for the TFFF initially, using this to attract a further $100bn from the global financial markets. The money would be dispensed to forested regions, rewarding them for reducing deforestation and providing finance for biodiversity conservation work.

But the subject the hosts seem much less comfortable with is the root cause of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. At Cop28 in Dubai in 2023, a historic resolution was made – that the world must “transition away from fossil fuels”. It may seem astonishing that this was the first time in 30 years of talks the subject had been addressed directly – the intransigence of petrostates and the need for consensus within the UN process had prevented such a move before. As soon as it was over, fellow petrostates – chiefly Saudi Arabia – began to try to unpick the agreement. At Cop29 in Azerbaijan – another economy heavily dependent on exporting oil and gas – attempts to reaffirm the resolution were stymied.

Supporters want to pick up the fight again this year, though about 50 countries are thought to want to prevent it being discussed. Brazil ranks in the top 10 global oil and gas exporters, and is prospecting for new fields, some of them offshore from the Amazon. The country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has strongly defended the rights of poor countries to carry on exploiting their resources, arguing it is the rich countries that have benefited from them for two centuries, and caused the climate crisis, who must stop.

EDIT

“It undermines the credibility of Cop if Cop can’t deal with fossil fuels,” says Leo Roberts at the E3G thinktank. If there is such a discussion, it can only take place in the context of a global “just transition”, argue civil society groups. That means ensuring that workers, the poor and the vulnerable are not abandoned or exploited in the race to clean energy.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/nov/09/amid-squabbles-bombast-and-competing-interests-what-can-cop30-achieve

[jfz9580m]

1. Humans..

Last edited Mon Nov 10, 2025, 12:35 AM - Edit history (5)

Popular Mechanics is an online sciencezine that presents a distinctly tabloid-friendly “brand” of science journalism. Lots of religion adjacent, wish fulfilment fantasy style material - aliens, time travel, multiverses, limitless energy!

I don’t blame the writers. It’s Hearst. They would probably lose their jobs if they didn’t give the public what it wants and hey, we could all use a little escapism these days. They still do a decent job off and on.

One of their writers, Darren Orf, wrote what I consider one of the most apt and brief descriptors I have ever come across of our glorious species:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a64845255/quantum-communication-seti/

a sub-I species intent on poisoning its own atmosphere.

Yup-that would be us .

It is alarming to see that left or right, all talk of the environment has tacitly been ditched. Apparently, along with legitimately inane stuff, the environment was also axed as unworthy of any concern. What bearing can it possibly have on human life?? Business as usual!

Sub-I species intent on poisoning its own atmosphere is too kind. We are also taking down the biosphere for everything else. Why would any intelligent alien species want to contact us? I’d support the worldview of the pacifist from the scifi show “3–body problem” and signal “Stay away! We are a fucking crazy, war-like, destructive, factory farming species. You don’t want to know us”.

Good for Tebany Yune. I like it when writers are blunt about human behavior rather than coddle our crassness and stupidity over and over. I really liked that headline - more of that please:

https://www.inkl.com/news/a-new-report-says-50-billion-years-of-evolution-is-being-threatened-by-stupid-humans

A new report says 50 billion years of evolution is being threatened by stupid humans

Billions of years of evolutionary history are at risk of destruction due to the expansion of human activity, according to researchers with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). This history has been the driving force behind some of Earth's most unique creatures, such as the dinosaur-like Shoebill; the bony-fingered Aye-Aye; and the mohawked Mary River turtle. In a first-of-its-kind study published this week in Nature Communications, the authors highlighted the risk of losing these species to human activity such as agricultural land use, construction and development, the depletion of local resources, and the ever-growing human population.

The researchers measured and mapped this activity into what's called a Human Footprint index. The index reveals areas around the globe where biodiversity is most threatened based on human development, rather than a species' population or physical traits. By combining the use of this index and information about a species' habitat and genetic history, the authors wrote, conservationists can adjust their priorities to focus on the most endangered of endangered species.

[Edit: Oops.. I just noticed a typo (presumably) in that inkl article. Since the earth is around 4 billion years old and the universe is 14(?), that obviously is not correct. But we are still doing what we can:

https://scitechdaily.com/humans-have-erased-3-billion-years-of-evolution-and-its-getting-worse/

Human-driven bird extinctions over the last 130,000 years have cut avian functional diversity and erased 3 billion years of evolution, impacting pollination, pest control, and ecosystems. Understanding these losses is key for future conservation.

]

[Second edit: Well okay-it’s a cumulative metric of some complicated type. I don’t really understand it beyond the obvious gist. I will admit to having been more enrapt by someone calling out our stupid species for a change (over neutral headlines that make it seem as if humans have no culpability):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16410-6

The loss of all threatened turtles (134 species with phylogenetic data) would lead to a loss of 3.4 BY (~41% of turtle PD). The loss of all 1151 threatened lepidosaurs with phylogenetic data would result in the loss of around 9.5 BY (median, 8% of lepidosaur PD). Combined, we stand to lose more than 13.1 billion years (median; range= 12.3–14.3 BY), or
around 10% of total reptile PD. This is 1.36 billion years more PD than if extinctions were randomly distributed within each reptilian order (paired t-test; t= 20.32, d.f.= 99, p < 0.0001).
The potential loss of PD across threatened reptiles is significantly lower than that for amphibians, which stand to lose around 21 BY
of PD (~16% of total PD). Birds stand to lose 6.2 BY (~7% of total PD) and mammals 6.4 BY (~13% of PD). Together, close to 50
billion years of unique tetrapod PD is at risk of extinction (~11% of total PD).

]


And obviously “stupid humans” is not a reference to eugenics. The stupid humans in question are our economists with their Cornucopian, pro-overpopulation, pro-over consumption, pro inane infinite growth models; our crass billionaires etc. These people believe in a law-of-the-jungle libertarian society with junk capitalism, starvation and poverty.

Fewer fucking shopping malls, more family planning and more snap benefits for poor kids/the elderly/the disabled etc. You have to spell these things out for the stupid humans who believe in defunding family planning, defunding birth control access and banning abortion all while keeping food/other resources from the poorest people out there (including children). The stupid people are our leadership class and industrialists. They ensure that lack of education access makes the rest of us closer to them.

[hatrack]

2. But muh MONEy!!!!

As others have said, hurtling towards the cliff at 90 mph in an 8,000-pound 12-cylinder testosterone shitwagon, and only thing we can agree to argue about is which radio station to listen to.