Local weather delegates struggling within the warmth are “piquing folks’s curiosity” – Do you agree?

Essay by Eric Worrall

According to reporter Will de Freitas, climate delegates have to endure personal hardships to get people interested in what they say.

Despite great disappointment, important developments occurred at Cop30

Published: November 28, 2025, 4:13am AEDT
Will de Freitas
Environment + Energy Editor, British edition

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate newsletter, Imagine.

Cop30 was never just another UN climate summit. The venue in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, recalled that the negotiations are now taking place within the crisis they are intended to resolve.

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“Without the distraction of the U.S. attempt to ‘burn the house down’… the conference could get on with the business at hand: negotiating texts and agreements that will limit global warming.”

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Meanwhile, the oppressive heat and humidity in Belém was felt even in the hearing rooms: “This triggered an official complaint from UN climate chief Simon Stiell about the climatic conditions in the Cop venue and called for ‘a clear delivery plan on how to reduce temperatures within the next 24 hours’.” The parallels to the goals of the broader negotiation process were hard to miss.

Stories cut through the noise

The image of climate diplomats wiping sweat from their foreheads as they struggle to concentrate in a stuffy room is riveting. And it’s things like this that often pique people’s interest.

Until the final days of Cop30, the biggest stories of the summit all had a human connection: the floods, an indigenous protest, a fire that briefly brought negotiations to a standstill.

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Read more: https://theconversation.com/cop30-saw-important-developments-amid-huge-disappointment-270712

Unfortunately, the United Nations has become complacent and has withdrawn from the issue of the COP conference with the suffering delegates.

COP31 will take place in the comfortable resort town of Antalya. In winter in the Turkish seaside resort of Antalya, with mild maximum temperatures of around 70°C in late autumn, the delegates have to endure rain and greedy taxi drivers. And of course there’s the appeal of being a high-end beach resort destination that’s a quick day trip by speedboat from the Syrian coast.

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