Cop30 - is climate diplomacy cracking
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Negotiations at the annual global climate change conference, or COP, are in full swing. But with consensus on the issue collapsing at home and abroad, including the US withdrawing from the landmark Paris agreement, is there even any point in the summit? We ask the UK’s special representative for climate.
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Guest: Professor Rachel Kyte, UK special representative for climate.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producers: Harry Stott, Olivia Case.
Read more: Ed Miliband: Cop30 will prove net zero doubters wrong
Further listening: Have we stopped caring about climate change?
Clips: United Nations / YouTube, TRT World, DW News / YouTube, Yahoo / YouTube, ITV, SABC News, News X World.
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvian Rana. |
| 0:10.4 | Ten years ago, it felt like the global spotlight shifted to one city. |
| 0:20.3 | Heads of state and world leaders, film stars and |
| 0:23.6 | philanthropists flocked to be there. Everything was about Paris and a climate agreement so starry, |
| 0:30.9 | it needed Leonardo DiCaprio to announce it. Yes, we have achieved the Paris Agreement. |
| 0:41.0 | More countries have come together here to sign this agreement today than for any other cause |
| 0:46.0 | in the history of humankind, and that is reason for hope. |
| 0:53.1 | The Paris Agreement tied nearly every country to a commitment aiming to limit global temperatures |
| 0:59.2 | rising above 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial levels. |
| 1:04.1 | To celebrate, all the assembled world leaders queued up for what must be the biggest class |
| 1:09.2 | photo in the history of summits. |
| 1:11.8 | A beaming David Cameron stands on the back row next to Prince Charles as he was then. |
| 1:17.0 | President Obama, Angela Merkel, it's a roll call of global power. |
| 1:22.3 | A decade later, it's a very different picture. |
| 1:29.3 | Only a handful of the world's most powerful heads of state made the trip to Brazil for COP 30. |
| 1:35.3 | The world is not on track to meet its targets. |
| 1:38.3 | But I'm immediately withdrawing from the unfair one-sided Paris climate accord ripple. |
| 1:44.7 | Leaders of big emitting countries like India, Russia and China were no shows. |
| 1:52.2 | Is the dream of limiting global warming over? |
| 1:56.1 | We've pinned down the UK's special representative on climate to find out where we stand. |
| 2:03.3 | The story today, COP 30, can the world get back on track? |
| 2:14.9 | We have spoken to you on the podcast before. Last time, it was just before Glasgow, but it's been |
... |
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