US, Russia and Saudi Arabia create axis of obstruction as Cop30 sputters out | Cop30

More than twenty years ago, the United States attacked the “axis of evil.” Now, after international climate negotiations failed and reached little conclusion, the United States finds itself grouped with an unflattering company – an “axis of obstruction” that has blocked progress on the climate crisis.

Donald Trump’s administration chose not to send anyone to the U.N. climate summit in Brazil that culminated this weekend — a first for the United States in 30 years of these annual gatherings and another illustration of the president’s disregard for the climate crisis, which he called a “hoax” and a “scam.”

But even without the administration touting “drill, baby, drill” at the gray conference center in Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon River, 194 other countries have failed to end the age of coal, oil and gas. The words “fossil fuels” were not mentioned in the agreement’s text due to fierce opposition led by Saudi Arabia, which has already been cajoled by the United States to take a more moderate line in climate negotiations.

Michael Jacobs, of think tank ODI Global and the University of Sheffield, said the Cop30 summit revealed “an increasingly bitter conflict at the heart of global climate politics: between those who accept the scientific fact that to tackle climate change the world must wean itself off fossil fuels over the coming decades; and those who actively resist it in pursuit of their short-term energy interests.”

The United States can now be considered in the latter group, alongside Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, according to Jacobs. “I think today we witnessed what all three countries agreed to,” he said of Trump’s separate dealings with Saudi Arabia and Russia over the past week.

“Geopolitically, this constitutes the creation of a new axis of obstruction – that of active promotion of fossil fuels and opposition to climate action. »

The United States now finds itself facing a loose coalition of about 90 countries, including much of Europe, that has been demanding a road map for phasing out fossil fuels — the root cause of the worsening climate crisis — in Belem.

This group will meet at a separate summit in Colombia in April to pursue this goal, amid impatience with the UN’s cumbersome, consensual framework on the climate crisis, which barely held together at Cop30.

“Even without the Trump administration to bully and cajole, petrostates have once again prevented meaningful progress on a road map to phase out fossil fuels with necessary funding for poorer countries,” said Jean Su, director of energy justice at the Center for Biological Diversity.

If a world of petro-states and “electro-states” is formed, the Trump administration is adamant that the United States remains in the first group. During Cop30, the U.S. administration pursued harsh counter-programs in the United States – removing protections for waterways and wetlands, making it harder to prevent species extinction, and paving the way for oil and gas drilling in more than a billion acres of U.S. waters.

This latest measure includes new drilling in pristine areas of the Arctic and, in a sort of trollish move timed for California Governor Gavin Newsom’s visit to Cop30, the prospect of oil rigs off California’s coast (Newsom said this would happen “over my dead body.”)

“President Trump has been clear: He will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals that are killing other countries,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. “President Trump serves the American people, not the radical climate activists who were victims of the biggest scam of the century. »

But even though Cop30 ended in frustration, observers nonetheless recognized that the world is still moving away from the fossil fuel era, with twice as much investment globally in renewables like wind and solar as in traditional energy sources last year.

And while China hasn’t fully filled the leadership void in Belem, it’s certainly leading as a clean energy superpower, outpacing even its antediluvian competitor — China now makes more money exporting green technology than America makes exporting fossil fuels.

Even in the United States, there is little appetite for Trump’s climate revanchism. Two-thirds of American voters oppose the president’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, while a clear majority want action to reduce the planet’s heat emissions and worry about heat waves, floods, storms and other climate-related calamities that are driving up insurance rates and harming Americans’ health.

If there is an obstructing axis, it may be able to slow the transition, but it is unlikely to stop it completely. “The rest of the world is fed up with delays and denial,” as former US Vice President Al Gore put it following the results of Cop30.

“Ultimately, the petrostates, the fossil fuel industry and their allies are losing power. Just as we are past peak Trump, I believe we are also past peak Petrostate. They may be able to veto diplomatic language, but they cannot veto action in the real world.”