(Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

If you paid any attention at all to COP 30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held last month in Belem, Brazil, you probably know about what didn’t happen: the United States refused to send an official delegation, petro-states led by Saudi Arabia and Russia fought to protect their fossil fuel interests, and the final set of recommendations issued by the conference failed to include a roadmap for the elimination of fossil fuels.

But COP 30 was not the total failure some in the media have claimed. True, we are not where we need to be, and the government and business interests of countries like the U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia are largely to blame. Yes, our country has renounced the scientific consensus and allied itself with authoritarian petro-states rather than the world’s democracies. We are in danger of overshooting 1.5 degrees of warming. The world is still in deep trouble.

And yet, the news is not all dire. In our absence, 195 countries negotiated an agreement that, if fully implemented, will go a long way toward easing the climate crisis and helping communities cope.

The final agreement opens with a recognition that a “clean, healthy, and sustainable environment” is a human right. It further recognizes the land rights of Indigenous people and calls for intergenerational equity in the development of climate policy. In other words, the signatories recognize that the people most affected by climate change — the young and those who live close to the land — should have a say.

Acknowledging that some degree of climate change is inescapable and that nations and communities will have to adapt, a major focus of the conference was on building resilience. One outcome was the Global Goal on Adaptation, which lists a set of 59 indicators of community resilience. These indicators include water security, food systems, infrastructure resilience, and the reach of early warning systems, all essential for human thriving in our world of extreme weather.

Perhaps most important, the conference approved a framework for a just transition mechanism and a plant on funding that transition. This means that those communities and individuals whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels or carbon-intensive industries will have both financial and technical assistance for developing a clean energy economy.

Another initiative with great potential is the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a financing mechanism that would turn forest conservation into an investment. The idea behind it is that more is to be gained by helping countries maintain their standing forests than by replanting after deforestation. The process is complicated, but the World Resources Institute offers a good explanation on its website (https://www.wri.org/insights/financing-nature-conservation-tropical-forest-forever-facility). Protecting these carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots is one of the most effective methods of carbon sequestration.

In addition to the final agreement, there were other positive outcomes. The COP 30 Action Agenda is a framework that unites and organizes actions taken by a range of national and local governments, businesses, and civil society organizations, recognizing that all levels and sectors need to work together. At the Local Leaders Forum, 14,000 cities, states, and regions formally committed to climate action. In addition, 77 countries and the European Union have committed to local/national collaboration on climate issues.

Essentially, COP 30 focused on the “people” aspects of the fight against climate change. While the scientific facts and technical possibilities must underlie all climate action, this year’s COP centered people, especially those who are most affected by climate change because of their age, income, location, or occupation. While it is disappointing (and for me as a U.S. citizen, frankly embarrassing) that our government has chosen to deny the existence of climate change and instead continues to exacerbate the problem, it is heartening to know that at least most other countries are willing to work together to create a better future for all of us.

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Rebecca Phillips is an emeritus professor at WVU Parkersburg and a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.