DIVE LOG DECEMBER 25 ISSUE 415

The Complete and Utter Failure of COP30 By Captain Paul Watson

F or 30 years, the charade has played out—beginning with COP1 in 1995. In March 1995, 869 delegates from 160 nations and the European Union met in Berlin to acknowledge the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. The conference produced no binding measures. It did recognize the gravity of the problem and the necessity of cutting emissions.

The alarm had been ringing long before. In 1968, the Stanford Research Institute warned the American Petroleum Institute that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would drive dangerous atmospheric increases with planetary consequences: significant temperature rises by 2000, melting of Antarctic ice, sea-level rise, ocean warming, and shifts in photosynthesis. Earlier still, in 1912, Popular Mechanics cautioned that burning roughly two billion tons of coal a year was adding some seven billion tons of CO ₂ to the atmosphere—thickening Earth’s “blanket” and likely warming the planet within centuries. The next milestone came in 1997 at COP3 in Kyoto, where delegates adopted the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gases. It soon proved hollow: countries could set their own rules for approving projects and issuing carbon credits with scant international oversight. U.S. Vice President Al Gore signed, knowing the Senate would not ratify; in 2001, President George W. Bush confirmed the United States would not implement the agreement, leaving it largely toothless. After Kyoto, COP hopscotched through Buenos Aires, Bonn, The Hague, Bonn again, Marrakesh, New Delhi, Milan, Buenos Aires, and on to COP11 in Montreal (2005). Montreal revisited Kyoto, generated promises, and sustained a fragile optimism—little more. From there, COP drifted through Nairobi, Bali, Pozna ń , Copenhagen, Cancún, Durban, Doha, Warsaw, and Lima: largely uneventful, mostly dull, a costly carousel. By 2003, Robert Hunter’s 2030: Confronting Thermageddon in Our Lifetime laid out dire warnings that now feel uncomfortably close. I doubt many COP30 delegates have read Hunter—or any environmental thinkers. They certainly didn’t read my 2019 book, Urgent! Save Our Ocean to Survive Climate Change . My interest briefly revived at COP21 in Paris (2015). For the first time, the ocean was finally part of the conversation, and I was invited to participate. But the Ocean Forum quickly tilted toward the seafood industry; when their chief concern became how climate change might “affect the

movement of the product in the sea,” I knew nothing meaningful would follow. My presentation was dismissed as “alarmist.” I did, however, speak with Chief Raoni of the Kayapó about the connection between Amazonia and the ocean—the planet’s two lungs, one green and one blue. Even so, it felt like an exercise in futility, reinforcing my view that COP has become a colossal waste of time. The roadshow moved on: Marrakech, Bonn (yet again), Katowice, Madrid, Glasgow, Sharm El-Sheikh, Dubai, Baku, and finally Belém. In Glasgow (COP26), Greta Thunberg captured the mood: “No more blah blah blah.” COP27 was sponsored by Coca-Cola, as if the Cola Wars had become a contest over who could be the greenest polluter. By COP28, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber—UAE energy minister and chief executive of ADNOC—chaired as “impartial” president while running a state oil company producing about 3.5 million barrels per day. The dissonance spoke for itself. Ten years after Paris, I attended COP30 in Belém more out of curiosity than hope. I was invited to present in the Blue Zone yet locked out of negotiations. In those rooms, frank environmentalism is unwelcome; ecological reality and truth are verboten in the backroom patter. Meanwhile, the United States under President Trump abandoned COP altogether. Canada’s leadership offered little better. Instead of confronting fossil-fuel emissions, the government passed measures that facilitate industry by sidelining environmental protections. The difference is only stylistic: outright denial versus polished rhetoric—either way, no real action. As Greta said, it’s all blah, blah, blah—plus photo ops and bullshit. So, for the first time in a decade, I wandered the Blue Zone, not as a delegate but as an accredited tourist, past national pavilions doubling as investment and tourism showcases—each touting technological fixes, education initiatives, and empty promises. At the Japanese pavilion,

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DIVE LOG Australasia #415 - December’ 25

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