The

The Hello and welcome to politics theory other.

My name is Alex Doherty and my guest today is Sabrina Fernandez.

Last month, the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference,

better known as COP 30, was held in the Amazonian city of Baleem in northern Brazil.

As with so many of the previous iterations of the COP process, the conference was widely seen

as a disappointment, with a binding agreement for a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels

being blocked by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other oil-producing states, and the COP

ended with no mention of fossil fuels in the closing texts.

In the first part of today's episode, I spoke to economist and activist Sabrina Fernandez

about her thoughts on COP 30 and how

the structure of the COP process could conceivably be reformed in order to stop recalcitrant

states vetoing action on climate. We also talked about whether or not multilateral climate

negotiations are being rendered irrelevant by development in the global economy and the rapid expansion of renewable energy.

We then went on to talk about Sabrina's recent article in The Breakdown, titled Lula's Dilemma.

We talked about the contradictory approach of Lula and the Brazilian Workers' Party towards climate and the environment,

and what Sabrina sees as a failing politics of class

conciliation that aims to bring agribusiness and mining interests onside with the Lula's

developmentalist agenda by granting them concessions that have disastrous environmental consequences.

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